mighty prone to make
mistakes. The man's just a sinner like the rest of us."

At Fontenoy, that September afternoon, Fairfax Cary, riding over from
Greenwood, found Miss Dandridge seated upon the steps which ran down to
the garden from the glass doors of the library. Her chin was in her
hands, and her black eyes were suspiciously bright. "You were crying,"
exclaimed the younger Cary. "Why?"

"I've been reading about the Capulets and the Montagues."

"You are not one to cry for the dead," said the young man. "Tell me
truly."

"No; I'm crying for the living. I've been talking to the Capulets. I've
been giving Uncle Edward a piece of my mind."

"Which he would not take?"

"Just so. Oh, it was a battle royal! But I lost--I always lose. He is
sitting there in triumphant misery, reading Swift. I brought my defeat
out here. Now and then I am glad I am a woman."

"I'm glad all the time," said Fairfax Cary. "Don't dwell on lost
battles. Unity, when are you going to let me fight all your battles?"

"I don't know," answered Miss Dandridge promptly. "I don't even know
that I would like to have all my battles fought for me. I'm not lazy,
and I believe my ancestors fought their own. Besides--would you fight
this one?"

There was a pause; then, "Do you love your cousin so?" asked the young
man.

"Love Jacqueline? Jacqueline is like my sister. If she is not happy,
then neither am I!"

"But she is happy. She loved Lewis Rand, and she married him."

"Yes, yes. But a woman may marry her lover and yet be unhappy. If he
takes her to a strange country, she may perish of homesickness."

"Has he taken her to a strange country?"

"Yes," cried Unity, with fire. "How can it but be a strange country?"
Her eyes filled with tears. "Why, why did she not love your brother!"

"That," said the younger Cary grimly, "is what I do not profess to
understand. And I would fight for your cousin, but I will not fight for
Lewis Rand. My brother's enemies are mine."

"You see. You wouldn't fight this battle, after all."

"Would Miss Dandridge wish me to?"

Unity regarded the sunset beyond the snowball bushes. "No," she said at
last, with a sigh and a shake of her head, "no, I wouldn't. I had rather
a man behaved like a man than like an angel."

"You are the angel. At least your cousin will not live much longer in
that log house, with the pines and the tobacco and the ghost of old
Gideon. Lewis Rand has bought Roselands."

"Roselands!"