mily hung breathlessly on his words, he continued
heroically: "Now, it doesn't bother me to be called an old fogy."

"There's no use trying to hide the fact that the Judge isn't quite what
he used to be," said Mrs. Culpeper in an unusually tolerant tone. "He
has let his habit of joking grow on him until you never know whether he
is serious or simply poking fun at you."

"The next thing we hear," suggested Peyton, who was quite dreadful at
times, "will be that the old gentleman admires the daughter also."

"He doesn't like conspicuous women," rejoined Victoria. "He told me so
only the other day when Mrs. Bradford announced that she was going to
run for the legislature."

"That's the kind of conspicuousness we all object to," commented Peyton;
"Patty Vetch isn't that sort."

Janet was more merciful. "Well, you are obliged to be conspicuous to-day
if you want anybody to notice you," she said. "Look at Mary Byrd."

Mary Byrd tossed her bright head as gaily as if a compliment had been
intended. "Oh, you needn't think I like to dress this way," she
retorted, "or that I don't sometimes get tired of keeping up with
things. Why, there are hours and hours when I simply feel as if I should
drop."

"Well, as long as you look like that you needn't hope for a change,"
remarked Stephen admiringly. Then, turning his gaze away from her too
obvious brightness, he looked into the tranquil depths of Margaret's
blue eyes, and thought how much more restful the old-fashioned type of
woman must have been. Men didn't need to bestir themselves and sharpen
their wits with women like that; they were accepted, with their
inherent virtues or vices, as philosophically as one accepted the
seasons.

It was a dull supper, he thought, because his mind was distracted; but a
little later, when they had returned to the drawing-room, and the family
had drifted away in separate directions--Mary Byrd and Peyton to a
dance, his father to his library, and his mother and the three other
girls to a game of bridge in the next room, he received an amazing
revelation of Margaret's point of view. His sentiment for the girl had
always suffered, he was aware, from too many opportunities. He had
sometimes wished that an obstacle might arise, that the formidable
parents would try for once to tear them apart instead of thrust them
together, but, in spite of the changeless familiarity of their
association, he was presently to discover how little he had known of the