spiritual. Anne had the look, indeed, of one who
sees heavenly visions.

Amy had never had that look. She was dark and vivid. If at thirty the
vividness was emphasized by artificial means the fault lay in Amy's
sacrifice to her social ideals, She needed the butter which she denied
herself. She needed cream, and eggs, and her doctor had told her so. And
Amy had kept the knowledge to herself.

Ethel, eating as little as Amy--or even less--had escaped, miraculously,
attenuation. At twenty she had been a plump little beauty. She was still
plump. Her neck in her low-cut gown was lovely. Her figure was not
fashionable, and she lacked Amy's look of race.

"They are all charming," Molly Winchell said. "Why don't you marry one
of them, Murray?"

"Marriage," said Murray, "would spoil it."

"Spoil what?"

Murray turned on her his fine dark eyes. "They are such darlings--the
three of them."

"You Turk!" Molly surveyed him over the top of her sapphire feather fan.
"So that's it, is it? You want them all."

Murray thought vaguely it was something like that. For ten years he had
had Amy and Ethel--Amy at twenty, fire and flame, Ethel at fifteen, with
bronze locks and lovely color. In those years Anne had promised little
in the way of beauty or charm. She had read voraciously, curled up in
chairs or on rugs, and had waked now and then to his presence and a hot
argument.

"Why don't you like Dickens, Murray?"

"Oh, his people, Anne--clowns."

"They're not!"

"Boors; beggars." He made a gesture of distaste.

"They're darlings--Mark Tapley and Ruth Pinch. Murray, if I had a
beefsteak I'd make a beefsteak pie."

There was more of pathos in this than Murray imagined. There had been no
beef on the Merryman table for many moons.

"Murray, did you ever eat tripe?"

"My dear child---"

"It sounds dee-licious when Toby Veck has it on a cold morning. And
there's the cricket on the hearth and the teakettle singing. I'd love to
hear a kettle sing like that, Murray; wouldn't you?"

But Murray wouldn't. He had the same kind of mind as Amy and Ethel. He
did not like robust and hearty things or robust and hearty people. He
wore a corset to keep his hips small, and stood up at teas and
receptions with an almost military carriage. Of course he had to sit
down at dinners, but he sat very straight. He, too, had family portraits
and family silver, and he lived scrupulously up to them. His fortunes,
unlike the Merrymans', had not dec