re
the latter, looking at her bare arms and shoulders, her shapely figure,
thinking of the fact that her left shoulder had a dimple, and that she
had selected garnet garters decorated with heart-shaped silver buckles.
The corset could not be made quite tight enough at first, and she chided
her maid, Kathleen Kelly. She studied how to arrange her hair, and there
was much ado about that before it was finally adjusted. She penciled her
eyebrows and plucked at the hair about her forehead to make it loose
and shadowy. She cut black court-plaster with her nail-shears and tried
different-sized pieces in different places. Finally, she found one size
and one place that suited her. She turned her head from side to side,
looking at the combined effect of her hair, her penciled brows, her
dimpled shoulder, and the black beauty-spot. If some one man could see
her as she was now, some time! Which man? That thought scurried back
like a frightened rat into its hole. She was, for all her strength,
afraid of the thought of the one--the very deadly--the man.

And then she came to the matter of a train-gown. Kathleen laid out five,
for Aileen had come into the joy and honor of these things recently, and
she had, with the permission of her mother and father, indulged
herself to the full. She studied a golden-yellow silk, with cream-lace
shoulder-straps, and some gussets of garnet beads in the train that
shimmered delightfully, but set it aside. She considered favorably a
black-and-white striped silk of odd gray effect, and, though she was
sorely tempted to wear it, finally let it go. There was a maroon dress,
with basque and overskirt over white silk; a rich cream-colored satin;
and then this black sequined gown, which she finally chose. She tried
on the cream-colored satin first, however, being in much doubt about it;
but her penciled eyes and beauty-spot did not seem to harmonize with
it. Then she put on the black silk with its glistening crimsoned-silver
sequins, and, lo, it touched her. She liked its coquettish drapery of
tulle and silver about the hips. The "overskirt," which was at that time
just coming into fashion, though avoided by the more conservative, had
been adopted by Aileen with enthusiasm. She thrilled a little at the
rustle of this black dress, and thrust her chin and nose forward to make
it set right. Then after having Kathleen tighten her corsets a little
more, she gathered the train over her arm by its train-band and loo