leisure of a summer evening had fallen with the twilight. Along
that street in Louisville wherein stood the Blair house, with its
splendid lawn, and its carriage driveway issuing through a tall, iron
gate, front doors were opening and family groups gathering. The yards
wore the fresh green of June. A homecoming crumple-horn ambled by, her
bag swinging heavily. In the South, in 1870, cities were villages
overgrown.

In the parlour of her home Harriet Blair sat, awaiting the arrival of
her brother Austen from Washington, where he had gone to bring back
their dead brother's child.

Harriet, at twenty-six, in lustreless mourning, was handsome and,
some might have said, cold. Her face was finely chiselled, and framed
with light hair waving from its parting in curves regular as the
flutings of a shell. There was a poise, a composure about this
Harriet, making her unlike the tall, shy girl of nine years before.

As the bell rang she laid down her book and rose, and a second later
Austen entered, leading a little girl with a round, short-cropped
head. His eyes met his sister's in greeting, then he loosed the
child's hand. "This is your Aunt Harriet, Alexina," he said, and
stepped across the room to stand before the mantel and watch the two.

Harriet bent and kissed the small cheek. Demonstration, even to this
extent, meant much for a Blair. Then she crossed the room. She was
more than ordinarily tall for a woman, with form proportioned to
length of limb, and the beauty of her carriage gained by her
unconsciousness of it.

Having pulled the bell-cord she came back, smiling, calmly expectant,
looking from Austen to the child, who, seated now on the edge of a
chair, was regarding her with grave eyes.

"She has a strong look of Alexander," said Harriet, consideringly,
"and a little look of you--and of me. She is a Blair, though I can see
her mother, too, about the mouth."

The child moved under the scrutiny, but her gaze, returning the study,
did not falter.

Harriet laughed; was it at this imperturbability? "I think," she
decided, "we may consider her a Blair." Then to the white maid-servant
entering: "You may order supper, Nelly, for Mr. Blair and myself.
This is Alexina, and, I should say, tired out. Suppose you give her a
warm bath and let her go right to bed--have you her trunk key,
Austen?--and I will send a tray up with her supper afterward."

Then, as Nelly took the key and went out, Harriet addressed her
broth