ght, erect, smiling young Irishman, who looked as though he might
carve a notable career for himself. She wore a short, girlish dress that
came to a little below her shoe-tops, a pale-figured lavender and white
silk, with a fluffy hoop-skirt of dainty laced-edged ruffles, against
which tiny bows of lavender stood out in odd places. There was a great
sash of lavender about her waist, and in her hair a rosette of the same
color. She looked exceedingly winsome--eager and bright-eyed.

But behind her was her sister in ravishing black satin, scaled as a fish
with glistening crimsoned-silver sequins, her round, smooth arms bare
to the shoulders, her corsage cut as low in the front and back as her
daring, in relation to her sense of the proprieties, permitted. She was
naturally of exquisite figure, erect, full-breasted, with somewhat more
than gently swelling hips, which, nevertheless, melted into lovely,
harmonious lines; and this low-cut corsage, receding back and front into
a deep V, above a short, gracefully draped overskirt of black tulle
and silver tissue, set her off to perfection. Her full, smooth, roundly
modeled neck was enhanced in its cream-pink whiteness by an inch-wide
necklet of black jet cut in many faceted black squares. Her complexion,
naturally high in tone because of the pink of health, was enhanced by
the tiniest speck of black court-plaster laid upon her cheekbone; and
her hair, heightened in its reddish-gold by her dress, was fluffed
loosely and adroitly about her eyes. The main mass of this treasure was
done in two loose braids caught up in a black spangled net at the back
of her neck; and her eyebrows had been emphasized by a pencil into
something almost as significant as her hair. She was, for the occasion,
a little too emphatic, perhaps, and yet more because of her burning
vitality than of her costume. Art for her should have meant subduing
her physical and spiritual significance. Life for her meant emphasizing
them.

"Lillian!" Anna nudged her sister-in-law. She was grieved to think that
Aileen was wearing black and looked so much better than either of them.

"I see," Lillian replied, in a subdued tone.

"So you're back again." She was addressing Aileen. "It's chilly out,
isn't it?"

"I don't mind. Don't the rooms look lovely?"

She was gazing at the softly lighted chambers and the throng before her.

Norah began to babble to Anna. "You know, I just thought I never would
get this old thing on