"Do you know, Sally," I began falteringly, after a minute, "there is something I ought to tell you, and that is, that when I looked up at the table last night and saw President in the doorway, my first feeling was one of shame."
She rubbed her cheek softly against my sleeve.
"Shall I confess something just as dreadful?" she asked. "When I looked up and saw him standing there my first feeling was exactly the same."
"Sally, I am so thankful."
"You wicked creature, to want me to be as bad as yourself."
"It couldn't have lasted with you but a second."
"It didn't, but a second is an hour in the mind of a snob."
"Well, we were both snobs together, and that's some comfort, anyway."
For the three days that President remained with us he wore my clothes, in which he looked more than ever like a miner attired for church, and carried himself with a resigned and humble manner.
Sally took him to the theatre and to drive with her in the afternoon, and I carried him to the General's office and over the Capitol, which he surveyed with awed and admiring eyes. Only Jessy still shrank from him, and not once during his visit were we able to prevail upon her to appear with him in the presence of strangers. There was always an excuse ready to trip off her tongue—she had a headache, she was going to the dressmaker's, the milliner's, the dentist's even; and I honestly believe that she sought cheerfully this last place of torture as an escape. To the end, however, he regarded her with an affection that fell little short of adoration.