“I think you ought to show Major[A] Sloat the ‘Directoire’ picture, my dear.”

“Alice would never forgive me,” said madame, laughing; “though I consider it the most beautiful we have of her.”

“Oh, where is it?” “Oh, do let us see it, Mrs. Maynard!” was the chorus of exclamations from the few ladies present.  “Oh, I insist on seeing it, madame,” was Sloat’s characteristic contribution to the clamor.

“I want you to understand it,” said Mrs. Maynard, pleased, but still hesitating.  “We are very daft about Alice at home, you know, and it’s quite a wonder she has not been utterly spoiled by her aunts and uncles; but this picture was a specialty.  An artist friend of ours fairly made us have it taken in the wedding-dress worn by her grandmother.  You know the Josephine Beauharnais ‘Directoire’ style that was worn in seventeen ninety-something.  Her neck and shoulders are lovely, and that was why we consented.  I went, and so did the artist, and we posed her, and the photograph is simply perfect of her face, and neck too, but when Alice saw it she blushed furiously and forbade my having them finished.  Afterwards, though, she yielded when her aunt Kate and I begged so hard and promised that none should be given away, and so just half a dozen were finished.  Indeed, the dress is by no means as decollete as many girls wear theirs at dinner now in New York; but poor Alice was scandalized when she saw it last month, and she never would let me put one in the album.”

“Oh, do go and get it, Mrs. Maynard!” pleaded the ladies.  “Oh, please let me see it, Mrs. Maynard!” added Sloat; and at last the mother-pride prevailed.  Mrs. Maynard rustled up-stairs, and presently returned holding in her hands a delicate silver frame in filigree-work, a quaint foreign affair, and enclosed therein was a cabinet photograph en vignette,—­the head, neck, and shoulders of a beautiful girl; and the dainty, diminutive, what-there-was-of-it waist of the old-fashioned gown, sashed almost immediately under the exquisite bust, revealed quite materially the cause of Alice Renwick’s blushes.  But a more beautiful portrait was never photographed.  The women fairly gasped with delight and envy.  Sloat could not restrain his impatience to get it in his own hands, and finally he grasped it and then eyed it in rapture.  It was two minutes before he spoke a word, while the colonel sat laughing at his worshipping gaze.  Mrs. Maynard somewhat uneasily stretched forth her hand, and the other ladies impatiently strove to regain possession.

“Come, Major Sloat, you’ve surely had it long enough. We want it again.”

“Never!” said Sloat, with melodramatic intensity.  “Never!  This is my ideal of perfection,—­of divinity in woman.  I will bear it home with me, set it above my fireside, and adore it day and night.”

“Nonsense, Major Sloat!” said Mrs. Maynard, laughing, yet far from being at her ease.  “Come, I must take it back.  Alice may be in any minute now, and if she knew I had betrayed her she would never forgive me.  Come, surrender!” And she strove to take it from him.