n Grannie had turned on her, too, that look that was
half contempt and half hostility or displeasure. Grannie had not wanted
her to marry Anthony, any more than she would have wanted Louie or
Emmeline or Edith to marry anybody, supposing anybody had wanted to
marry them. And Frances and Anthony had defied her. They had insisted on
marrying each other. Frances knew that if there had been no Anthony, her
mother would have despised her in secret, as in secret she despised
Emmeline and Edith. She despised them more than Louie, because, poor
things, they wanted, palpably, to be married, whereas Louie didn't, or
said she didn't. In her own way, Louie had defied her mother. She had
bought a type-writer and a bicycle with her own earnings, and by
partially supporting herself she had defied Anthony, the male
benefactor, Louie's manner intimated that there was nothing Frances had
that she wanted. She had resources in herself, and Frances had none.

Frances persuaded herself that she admired and respected Louie. She knew
that she, Frances, was only admired and respected because she had
succeeded where her three sisters had failed. She was even afraid that,
in moments of exasperation, Grannie used her and Anthony and the
children to punish Emmy and Edie for their failure. The least she could
do was to stand between them and Grannie.

It was possible that if Grannie had been allowed to ignore them and give
her whole attention to Frances or Michael or Baby John, she could have
contrived to be soft and gentle for an afternoon. But neither Louie nor
Emmeline, nor even Edith, would consent to be ignored. They refused to
knuckle under, to give in. Theirs was a perpetual struggle to achieve an
individuality in the teeth of circumstances that had denied them any.
Frances acknowledged that they were right, that in the same
circumstances she would have done the same.

In their different ways and by different methods they claimed attention.
They claimed it incessantly, Louie, the eldest, by an attitude of
assurance and superiority so stiff and hard that it seemed invulnerable;
Emmy by sudden jerky enthusiasms, exaltations, intensities; Edie by an
exaggerated animation, a false excitement. Edie would drop from a
childish merriment to a childish pathos, when she would call herself
"Poor me," and demand pity for being tired, for missing a train, for
cold feet, for hair coming down.

There would be still more animation, and still more enthusia