A PARTNER 'FOR A COTILLON. 250 



as to wooing or fighting; if I am snubbed it won't 

 be all the world, and I suppose I shall live it down 

 so here goes ! Walking boldly up to her, I 

 asked coolly, but rather apologetically, if she 

 would try a waltz. 



' Guess, stranger, I ain't a-fix'd up for waltzin.' 



' Perhaps, madam,' I said, ' you will excuse 

 me, although unknown to you, if I ask you to 

 dance the next CGtillon with me ? ' 



Looking into my face with an expression half 

 doubt, half delight, she said : ' Stranger, I'll have 

 the tallest kind of pleasure in puttin' you right 

 slick through a cotillon, for I've sot here, like 

 a blue chicken on a pine-log, till I was like to 

 a-grow'd to the seat.' 



This satisfactorily arranged, I sat down by her 

 side until the Avaltz finished, to have a good look 

 at and trot out my new inamorata. She was a 

 blonde beauty, with fair hair and light-grey eyes, 

 that flashed and twinkled roguishly ; and robed in 

 some white material, with blue ribbons in her 

 hair and round her waist a mountain-sylph, that 

 any wanderer in search of a partner would have 

 deemed himself lucky to have stumbled on. 

 Our conversation was rather discursive, until 

 I discovered that home-politics, or rather the 

 duties and requirements of a gal t'hum, was a 



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