Hamilton House is the name of a Scottish country dance.
The name alludes to the peculiar succession of the earldom of Selkirk: if the Duke of Hamilton, head of the house, has a younger brother, the earldom passes to the latter rather than to the duke. Thus the earldom has on three occasions (1885, 1940, 1994) passed to a duke's brother. (If Lord Selkirk has a surviving son, the title descends normally.)
In the dance, the first lady (just widowed) sets off, dances with the new Duke and then turns his younger brother before coming back to line up between the new Duke and his wife. The concept behind the dance has nothing to do with flirting, however this can be an interesting side-line.
Famous quotes containing the words hamilton and/or house:
“None but a poet can write a tragedy. For tragedy is nothing less than pain transmuted into exaltation by the alchemy of poetry.”
—Edith Hamilton (1867–1963)
“[My father] was a lazy man. It was the days of independent incomes, and if you had an independent income you didn’t work. You weren’t expected to. I strongly suspect that my father would not have been particularly good at working anyway. He left our house in Torquay every morning and went to his club. He returned, in a cab, for lunch, and in the afternoon went back to the club, played whist all afternoon, and returned to the house in time to dress for dinner.”
—Agatha Christie (1891–1976)