He saw the same children, and the same toys on the table; and there was the same grand castle with the pretty little
Dancer.
A single turn proved to them that their methods were incompatible; instead of fitting into each other their bones seemed to jut out in angles making smooth turning an impossibility, and cutting, moreover, into the circular progress of the other
dancers.
In these three dances the
dancers furnish their own music, which never varies; nor do the steps or figures vary, having been handed down from time immemorial.
There he sat, in his place behind her, to all appearance spell-bound by the fascinations of the graceful
dancer.
In the finale she fell into some of those grotesque attitudes which were at the time popular among the
dancers in the theatres up-town, giving to the Bowery public the phantasies of the aristocratic theatre-going public, at reduced rates.
You're a dream of a
dancer," Billy Roberts was saying.
In a distracted condition, which only a mother--moving in Society--can be susceptible of, I determined to go myself to the theatre, and represent my state of mind to the
dancer.
Endlessly the
dancers swung round and round--when they were dizzy they swung the other way.
We are extremely fond of good dinners, music, and dancing; we also like frequent changes of linen, warm baths, and good beds, so now, please, some of you who are the best
dancers set about dancing, that our guest on his return home may be able to tell his friends how much we surpass all other nations as sailors, runners,
dancers, and minstrels.
And at the first let him practise with helps, as swimmers do with bladders or rushes; but after a time let him practise with disadvantages, as
dancers do with thick shoes.
The
dancers were going faster and faster, and the musicians, to keep up with them, belaboured their instruments like jockeys lashing their mounts on the home-stretch; yet it seemed to the young man at the window that the reel would never end.
When all the adult males had joined in the thin line of circling
dancers the attack commenced.
For an instant the
dancers paused, and in the silence of the interval there rose from the lips of the fast-bound white man an answering shriek, more fearsome and more terrible than that of the jungle-beast that had roused it.
The women came and squatted about the rim of the circle, beating upon tom-toms, clapping their hands in time to the steps of the
dancers, and joining in the chant of the warriors.
And when the fiddler, peering into the front room, remarked to the pianist, "It's Burning Daylight," the waltz-time perceptibly quickened, and the
dancers, catching the contagion, began to whirl about as if they really enjoyed it.
