his eye having fallen
with sudden disapproval upon a large, heavily framed, glass-covered
engraving, "The Battle of Gettysburg," which hung upon the wall, near
the front door. Undeniably, it was a picture feeble in decorative
quality; no doubt, too, William was right in thinking it as unworthy of
Miss Pratt, as were Jane and Genesis and Clematis. He felt that she must
never see it, especially as the frame had been chipped and had a corner
broken, but it was more pleasantly effective where he found it than
where (in his nervousness) he left it. A few hasty jerks snapped the
elderly green cords by which it was suspended; then he laid the picture
upon the floor and with his handkerchief made a curious labyrinth
of avenues in the large oblong area of fine dust which this removal
disclosed upon the wall. Pausing to wipe his hot brow with the same
implement, he remembered that some one had made allusions to his collar
and hair, whereupon he sprang to the stairs, mounted two at a time,
rushed into his own room, and confronted his streaked image in the
mirror.

XIII

AT HOME TO HIS FRIENDS

After ablutions, he found his wet hair plastic, and easily obtained the
long, even sweep backward from the brow, lacking which no male person,
unless bald, fulfilled his definition of a man of the world. But
there ensued a period of vehemence and activity caused by a bent
collar-button, which went on strike with a desperation that was
downright savage. The day was warm and William was warmer; moisture
bedewed him afresh. Belated victory no sooner arrived than he perceived
a fatal dimpling of the new collar, and was forced to begin the
operation of exchanging it for a successor. Another exchange, however,
he unfortunately forgot to make: the handkerchief with which he had
wiped the wall remained in his pocket.

Voices from below, making polite laughter, warned him that already some
of the bidden party had arrived, and, as he completed the fastening of
his third consecutive collar, an ecstasy of sound reached him through
the open window--and then, Oh then! his breath behaved in an abnormal
manner and he began to tremble. It was the voice of Miss Pratt, no less!

He stopped for one heart-struck look from his casement. All in fluffy
white and heliotrope she was--a blonde rapture floating over the
sidewalk toward William's front gate. Her little white cottony dog, with
a heliotrope ribbon round his neck, bobbed his head over her cudd