ct which won me completely:--

"Mrs. Starr has been telling us such interesting things about your
brother. He has a very fine head."

"By George, I'm glad I shook his hand," said the General, in his loud,
kindly way. "Bring him to see me, Ben, I like a worker."

The terrible minute in which I had sat there, paralysed by the shame of
acknowledging him, was still searing my mind. As I met Sally's eyes over
the roses and lilies, I wondered if she had seen my cowardliness as I
had seen Jessy's, and been repelled by it? When the dinner was over, and
the last guest had gone, I asked myself the question again while I went
upstairs to bring my brother from his retirement. As I opened the door,
he started up from the chair in which I had placed him, and began
rubbing his eyes as he followed me timidly out of the room. At the table
Sally seated herself opposite to him, and talked in her simple, kindly
manner while he ate his dinner.

"Pour his wine, Ben," she said, dismissing the butler, "there are too
many frivolities, aren't there? I like a clear space, too."

Turning toward him she pushed gently away the confusing decorations, and
removed the useless number of forks from beside his plate. If the way he
ate his soup and drank his wine annoyed her, there was no hint of it in
her kind eyes and her untroubled smile. She, who was sensitive to the
point of delicacy, I knew, watched him crumble his bread into his green
turtle, and gulp down his sherry, with a glance which apparently was
oblivious of the thing at which it looked. Jessy shrank gradually away,
confessing presently that she had a headache and would like to go
upstairs to bed; and when she kissed President's cheek, I saw aversion
written in every line of her shrinking figure. Yet opposite to him sat
Sally, who was a Bland and a Fairfax, and not a tremor, not the flicker
of an eyelash, disturbed her friendly and charming expression. What was
the secret of that exquisite patience, that perfect courtesy, which was
confirmed by the heart, not by the lips? Did the hidden cause of it lie
in the fact that it was not a manner, after all, but the very essence of
a character, whose ruling spirit was exhaustless sympathy?

"I've told Benjy, ma'am," said President, selecting the largest fork by
some instinct for appropriateness, "that I know I oughtn't to have done
it."

"To have done what?" repeated Sally kindly.

"That I oughtn't to have come in on a party like that dressed