She had stopped him on the moment of
his departure at the foot of the stairs, close to the grotesque old
newel-post, to look him over with a severely critical eye.
"Has it got its posy in its button-hole?" she inquired, throwing open his
ulster. There was a gardenia there. "Yes, _that's_ all right." Then:
"Has it got its little soles blacked?" Truesdale laughed, and turned up
one of his long, slender, shining shoes, while he supported himself by
his other leg and the newel-post. "Yes, that's first-rate," she assented.
"What else is there, now?" she pondered.
"Oh! wait one second." She ravaged his inner pocket with a sudden hand.
"Has it got its 'foom'ry on its little hanky?" She drew out the
handkerchief and clapped it to her nose. "Not a drop--just wait one
second."
She tore up-stairs in great haste, and in a moment more she came tumbling
down with her own cologne bottle in her hand. "You'll kill yourself,
Jane," her mother called.
"Here!" She seized her brother's handkerchief again and drenched it with
a plentiful and vigorous douse. "There!" she said, with great
satisfaction, as she restored it to him.
"Goodness, Jane!" Truesdale cried, in laughing protest, "they'll all
smell this for fifty feet around."
Jane gave her brother a commendatory pat, and said no word. She felt that
he was now ready for conquest. Speech was superfluous.
"No, I can't smell it," said Jane, again; "I think he must have
exaggerated.
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