"If I do not, who will? Now what I want you to do is to pay Harriet some attention after I arrive with her. I shall take her into supper, because if you took her in, she would never get any. But suppose that after supper you strolled carelessly up to us--you know how men do--and asked her to take a turn with you." "What kind of a turn in Heaven's name?" "Well, suppose you took her out into the yard--to one of those little rustic seats of Marguerite's--and sat there with her for half an hour--in the darkest place you could possibly find. And I want you to try to hold her hand." "Why, Anna, what on earth--" "Now don't you suppose Harriet would let you do it," she said indignantly. "But what I want her to have is the pleasure of refusing: it would be such a triumph. It would make her happy for days: it might lengthen her life a little." "What effect do you suppose it would have on mine?" His face softened as he mused on the kind of woman his sister was. "Now don't you try to do anything else," she added severely. "I don't like your expression." He laughed outright: "What do you suppose I'd do?" "I don't suppose you'd do anything; but don't you do it!" Miss Anna's invitation to Harriet had been written some days before. She had sent down to the book-store for ten cents' worth of tinted note paper and to the drugstore for some of Harriet's favorite sachet powder. Then she put a few sheets of the paper in a dinner plate and sprinkled the powder over them and set the plate where the powder could perfume the paper but not the house. Miss Anna was averse to all odor-bearing things natural or artificial. The perfect triumph of her nose was to perceive absolutely nothing. The only trial to her in cooking was the fact that so often she could not make things taste good without making them smell good. In the course of time, bending over a sheet of this note paper, with an expression of high nasal disapproval. Miss Anna had written the following note: "A. Hardage, Esq., presents the compliments of the season to Miss Crane and begs the pleasure of her company to the ball. The aforesaid Hardage, on account of long intimacy with the specified Crane, hopes that she (Crane) will not object to riding alone at night in a one-horse rockaway with no side curtains. Crane to be hugged on the way if Hardage so desires--and Hardage certainly will desire. Hardage and Crane to dance at the ball together while their strength lasts." Having posted this letter, Miss Anna went off to her orphan and foundling asylum where she was virgin mother to the motherless, drawing the mantle of her spotless life around little waifs straying into the world from hidden paths of shame. X It was past one o'clock on the night of the ball.