'Why,
Winifred, you dance better than ever!'
She leaped away in alarm and confusion; while Snap, on the contrary,
welcomed me with much joy.
'Oh, I beg your pardon, sir,' she said, not looking at me with the
blunt frankness of childhood, as the little woman of the old days
used to do, but drooping her eyes. 'I didn't see you.'
'But _I_ saw _you_, Winifred; I have been watching you for the last
quarter of an hour.'
'Oh, you never have!' said she, in distress; 'what could you have
thought? I was only trying to cheer up poor Snap, who is out of
sorts. What a mad romp you must have thought me, sir!'
'Why, what's the matter with Snap?'
'I don't know. Poor Snap' (stooping down to fondle him, and at the
same time to hide her face from me, for she was talking against time
to conceal her great confusion and agitation at seeing me. _That_ was
perceptible enough.)
Then she remembered she was hatless.
'Oh dear, where's my hat?' said she, looking round. I had picked up
the hat before accosting her, and it was now dangling behind me.
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