I presume at this point I owe some deference to feminine importunity. How was Sally dressed? Well; Sally had good taste, perhaps a trifle insubordinate by nature, but a rigorous subjection to good social usage had made it fairly unimpeachable. At that particular moment in the afternoon of May 27th, 1909, after his extrication from the subterranean embraces of the Baltimore and Ohio tunnel, and an uninspired walk along Charles street, Sally to Leacraft’s eyes presented the acme of sartorial perfection. She wore a white lisseree gown in which were inwoven threads of gray which gave it “atmosphere,” a kind of filmyness quite indescribable, but very inviting--above that, a waist of almost the same color, without the gray threads, and fitting tightly at the wrists with faintly voluminous sleeves--a stock of daffodill yellow encircled by an aqua-marine necklace, and in her clustering golden brown cascades of hair, rushed up into a chaste confinement between pearl-starred combs--she had thrust an amethyst aigrette. It was a willful thought, a vagary of sheer carelessness. But it looked well, and--Leacraft might have danced a jig (if he knew how) of pure ecstacy; and if his impurturbable nature would have permitted so gross a jest--it was one Leacraft had himself given her only last Christmas. You can see or infer ladies that your attractive sister, given, as I have tried to do, her natural adaptibility for embellishment, must have looked more than pleasing, that to a young man approaching her with idolatry in his heart and prayers on his lips she must have looked very nearly like the embodyment of the feminine ideal, like that inscrutable loveliness which first wins from a man his careless notice, and the next moment has him chained to its feet in servitude. Well; such were the circumstances, and Leacraft hastily removing his hat looked with all his eyes at the fair vision, and found himself embarrassed in speaking his formal salutation: “How do you do, Miss Garrett?” “Why, Mr. Leacraft,” replied the arch tormenter; “I thought it was Ned. He has just gone to get our tickets for to-morrow. And you, Mr. Leacraft, go with us? You will see our great battle field and hear our President. I’m sure you will find both wonderful. But come in, Mr. Leacraft.” The vision with intoxicating grace swung back the door and preceded the tongue-tied suitor to the parlor. Mr. Leacraft left his hat and valise in the hall, and followed. Another instant, they were both seated in the deep room from whose walls the portraits of ancient and meagre, or stately and peptic Garretts, looked down upon them, and in looking were amused or distressed, according to their nature, at the display of modern elegance, helped out by a tasteful condescension to antiquities and heirlooms.