e, even the harmony of the
trimmings. He raised his eyes, half affrightedly, prepared to see
the headless shoulders, but they--and what seemed to be a head--were
concealed in a floating "cloud" or nubia of some fleecy tissue, as
if for protection from the evening air. He remained for an instant
motionless, dazed by this apparent motion of an inanimate figure; but
as the absurdity of the idea struck him he hurriedly but stealthily
ascended the remaining stairs, resolved to follow it. But he was only in
time to see it turn into the angle of another corridor, which, when he
had reached it, was empty. The figure had vanished!

His first thought was to go to the committee room and examine the locked
closet. But the key was in his desk at home, he had no light, and the
room was on the other side of the house. Besides, he reflected that
even the detection of the figure would involve the exposure of the very
secret they had kept intact so long. He sought his bedroom, and went
quietly to bed. But not to sleep; a curiosity more potent than any sense
of the trespass done him kept him tossing half the night. Who was this
woman whom the clothes fitted so well? He reviewed in his mind the
guests in the house, but he knew none who could have carried off this
masquerade so bravely.

In the morning early he made his way to the committee room, but as he
approached was startled to observe two pairs of boots, a man's and a
woman's, conjugally placed before its door. Now thoroughly indignant,
he hurried to the office, and was confronted by the face of the fair
secretary. She colored quickly on seeing him--but the reason was
obvious.

"You are coming to scold me, sir! But it is not my fault. We were full
yesterday afternoon when your friend from San Francisco came here with
his wife. We told him those were YOUR rooms, but he said he would make
it right with you--and my father thought you would not be displeased
for once. Everything of yours was put into another room, and the closet
remains locked as you left it."

Amazed and bewildered, the president could only mutter a vague apology
and turn away. Had his friend's wife opened the door with another key in
some fit of curiosity and disported herself in those clothes? If so, she
DARE not speak of her discovery.

An introduction to the lady at breakfast dispelled this faint hope. She
was a plump woman, whose generous proportions could hardly have been
confined in that pale blue bodice; sh