Left by Ned Garrett to assume the conventional apparel for dinner, and lingering with a delighted inspection of the details of his bedroom which he thought just reflected, to the nice point of a modest assertion of feminine adroitness, a really exquisite taste, he ran over the possible and best programme for the short campaign he felt it necessary to devise for the capture of the gentle and ethereal enemy. As he gazed, with increasing uneasiness, and poorly repressed envy at Henry’s piquant and picturesque colored sketches of “A Virginia Wedding,” and “The Departure of the Bride,” which offered themselves so suggestively between the white curtains on the saffron tinted paper, he came to this conclusion. He would that evening, if the occasion presented itself for a really favorable interview, let Sally know how much he thought of her, and how hopelessly unhappy he must become, if she could furnish him with no encouragement. That would do just now; but when they got to Gettysburg he might expect to find a convenient moment to be more explicit, indeed to urge her to the critical extremity of telling him what he might hope for. This progressive method he fancied promised the best results, and, his thoughts still recalling with infatuation the uncalled for insertion of his aigrette in her hair on the very day when he was expected, he imagined if there was not absolute surrender on Sally’s part now, there might be compromising negotiations for surrender later. With complacency, he looked at himself in the glass, walked to the hallway and descended. He had reached the broad stairway which entered the centre of the first floor of this sumptuous home, descending on the two sides in a series of separate steps, and then uniting into a wide terrace of steps, expanding upon the hall at the bottom, and guarded by a balustrade, which ended in two newel posts of surprising proportions, each carrying an enormous Rokewood vase, from which sprang a mingled white and red exuberance of sweet alyssum and geranium. As Leacraft stood at the top of the terrace of steps, he commanded a full view of the lower hall. And right beneath him, at the foot of the terrace, under the Rokewood vases, he saw Sally Garrett--the girl whom a moment ago he had with some unction and self-flattery ventured to think was not averse to his attentions--pinning on the lapel of the evening suit of a most offensively good looking young man, a _boutonniere_ of geranium and alyssum, filched (the theft was evident) from the great vase above their heads, and to accomplish which, it seemed to the maddened observation of Leacraft, that the young man must have lifted the young lady. This was a conjunction of agencies too terrible to dwell on with equanimity, and in pure fright Leacraft stopped a moment, and became an involuntary spy upon proceedings evidently not intended for an inspection so inimical as his.