ey devoutly hoped, Stephen would one day perceive the
wisdom of marrying. The four daughters--Victoria, the eldest, who had
nursed in France during the war; Hatty, who ought to have been pretty,
and was not; Janet, who was candidly plain; and Mary Byrd, who would
have been a beauty in any circle--were talking eagerly, with the
innumerable little gestures which they had inherited from Mrs.
Culpeper's side of the house. They adored one another; they adored their
father and mother; they adored their three brothers and their married
sister, whose name was Julia; and they adored every nephew and niece in
the connection. Though they often quarrelled, being young and human,
these quarrels rippled as lightly as summer storms over profound depths
of devotion.

"Oh, I do wish," said Mary Byrd, who had "come out" triumphantly the
winter before, "that Stephen would marry Margaret." She was a slender
graceful girl, with red-gold hair, which had a lustrous sheen and a
natural wave in it, and the brown ox-like eyes of her father. There was
a great deal of what Peyton, the second son, who lived at home, and was
the most modern of the family, called "dash" about her.

"It was the war that spoiled it," said Janet, the plain one, who
possessed what her mother fondly described as "a charm that was all her
own." "I sometimes think the war spoiled everything."

At this Victoria, the eldest, demurred mildly. Ever since she had nursed
in France, she had assumed a slightly possessive manner toward the war,
as if she had in some mysterious way brought it into the world and was
responsible for its reputation. She was tall and very thin, with a
perfect complexion, a long nose, and a short upper lip which showed her
teeth too much when she laughed. Her hair was fair and fluffy; and Mrs.
Culpeper, who could not praise her beauty, was very proud of her
"aristocratic appearance."

"Why, he never even mentions the war," she protested.

"I don't care. I believe he thinks about it," insisted Janet, who would
never surrender a point after she had once made it.

"He's different, anyhow," said Hatty, the one who had everything, as her
mother asserted, to make her pretty, and yet wasn't. "He isn't nearly so
normal. Is he, Mother?"

Mrs. Culpeper raised troubled eyes from the skirt of her pale gray silk
gown which she was scrutinizing dejectedly. "How on earth could I have
got that spot there?" she remarked in her brisk yet soft voice. "I am
afraid yo