She leaned forward eagerly as her brother came once more into view. "Yes," she said, "his flower is all right, and the soles of his shoes. I wonder if--" and she leaned still farther forward and drew in a long breath through her nose. "No, I can't smell it; I don't believe it's bothered him any!" Jane, in the earlier part of the evening, had sent Truesdale to the ball as a lady sends a knight to battle. She had stopped him on the moment of his departure at the foot of the stairs, close to the grotesque old newel-post, to look him over with a severely critical eye. "Has it got its posy in its button-hole?" she inquired, throwing open his ulster. There was a gardenia there. "Yes, _that's_ all right." Then: "Has it got its little soles blacked?" Truesdale laughed, and turned up one of his long, slender, shining shoes, while he supported himself by his other leg and the newel-post. "Yes, that's first-rate," she assented. "What else is there, now?" she pondered. "Oh! wait one second." She ravaged his inner pocket with a sudden hand. "Has it got its 'foom'ry on its little hanky?" She drew out the handkerchief and clapped it to her nose. "Not a drop--just wait one second." She tore up-stairs in great haste, and in a moment more she came tumbling down with her own cologne bottle in her hand. "You'll kill yourself, Jane," her mother called. "Here!" She seized her brother's handkerchief again and drenched it with a plentiful and vigorous douse. "There!" she said, with great satisfaction, as she restored it to him. "Goodness, Jane!" Truesdale cried, in laughing protest, "they'll all smell this for fifty feet around." Jane gave her brother a commendatory pat, and said no word. She felt that he was now ready for conquest. Speech was superfluous. "No, I can't smell it," said Jane, again; "I think he must have exaggerated. He's going off in the other direction, anyway." Mrs. Bates touched her elbow. "Who's that dark girl in pink? No; not to the left--straight ahead." "Why, I declare, it's Rosy!" exclaimed Jane. "And doesn't she look lovely! She's the prettiest girl here, isn't she?" "Yes." "And how well that little curly-cue curl on her forehead keeps its shape! But do you think she should have worn Maréchal Niels?" "I dare say she's had red until she is tired of them. Who is the young man with her?" "Don't know," said Jane. "These new young men are getting to be too many for _me_." "Well, then, I'll tell you. It's Arthur Paston." "Arthur Scodd-Paston?" asked Jane, contributing a conscientious hyphen to the name and a laborious accent to the forepart of it. "Why, he doesn't look so very hateful and supercilious." "Oh, he's never that. He's a nice enough fellow. You mustn't take all my exaggerations seriously. He's jolly and pleasant, as you see for yourself." "He'd better be--with Rosamund. She won't stand any great 'I' and little 'u' from anybody. But he does look real nice and stout and healthy and rosy, and everything, doesn't he?"