an and a man of exuberant vitality
and speech. His wife, who had loved him and admired him for every
contrast to the contained people among whom she had been brought up, had
adopted something of his vigorous way of expressing himself.

"Are you?" she repeated.

It was not Mrs. Loring's way to evade things, but she was so really
interested in Eleanor's point of view that instead of answering this
question she said:

"What are your reasons for inferring that Morris is ruining his life?"

Mrs. Horton tossed her book aside, and clasped her crisp, capable
looking little brown hands about one knee.

"'Reasons'!" said she. "Aren't facts enough for you? Isn't a love-sick
boy of twenty-six who marries a woman years older pretty well smashing
things up for himself?"

"Sophy Chesney is only thirty, Eleanor."

"Oh, what a hair-splitter you are, Grace! Four years' difference on the
wrong side--the woman's side, is a big chasm ... say what you will."

"There have been very happy marriages of that sort, Eleanor, and with
far greater difference in age. There was Miss Thackeray's marriage with
Mr. Ritchie----"

"Oh, do go on!" said Mrs. Horton, with an outward snuffing of
contemptuous breath. "Give us some more specimens from
literature--George Eliot and Mr. Cross for example."

Mrs. Loring put up her _face-a-main_ again and looked curiously at her
sister.

"Why are you so vexed, Eleanor?" she asked mildly. "After all, it's a
brilliant marriage for Morris in a way--Sophy Chesney is a very
distinguished woman. Had you ... er ... plans for Morris?"

Mrs. Horton blushed. She _had_ thought that Morris might marry her
step-daughter Belinda some day, but she had never admitted this even to
herself. Grace's random shot hit home. She retorted rather gruffly:

"Can't a woman take an interest in her own nephew, without being accused
of scheming?"

"Oh ... 'scheming'.... My _dear_ Eleanor!" protested her sister.

"The fact is," pursued Mrs. Horton, "I take the common-sense view of the
case and you the sentimental one. Linda!... What on earth have you been
doing to look so hot?"

This last sentence was addressed to her step-daughter, Belinda Horton,
who came racing up the verandah steps, her blowze of red-brown hair
blowing out behind her, and a tennis racquet in her hand. Belinda was a
triumphantly beautiful hoyden of sixteen, despite a slight powdering of
freckles and a tiny silvery scar through one raven black eyebrow, the
r