erated Stephen
so profoundly.

"Oh, first rate," responded the young man lightly. "Is there anything
you would like me to help you about?"

"No, there's nothing I can't attend to myself--" Mr. Culpeper had begun
to reply, when catching sight of his wife's frowning face, he continued
hurriedly: "Unless you would care to glance over that deed about those
lots of your mother's?"

Stephen smiled, for he had seen the warning change in his mother's
expression, and he was thinking that she was still a remarkably pretty
woman. "With pleasure," he returned. "I shall be busy all day, but I'll
look it over to-morrow. To-night I am going to the Harrisons' dance."

"Oh, you're going!" exclaimed Mary Byrd, who had come in late and was
just taking her seat. "I suppose Mother is making you take Margaret
Blair?"

Again Mrs. Culpeper made a vague frowning movement of her eyebrows and
gently shook her head; but the gesture of disapproval to which her
husband had responded obediently was entirely wasted upon her youngest
daughter. "You needn't shake your head at me, Mother," she remarked
lightly. "Of course I know you are making him take her when he would
rather a hundred times go with Patty Vetch."

The frown on Mrs. Culpeper's face turned to a look of panic. "Mary Byrd,
you are impossible," she said sternly.

"I saw Cousin Corinna yesterday," observed Victoria indiscreetly. "She
is going to take Patty Vetch."

Mrs. Culpeper said nothing, but her fine black brows drew ominously
together. She had worked so busily over the coffee urn and the sugar
bowl that she had not had time to eat her breakfast, and the oatmeal in
the plate before her had grown stiff and cold before she tasted it. When
Stephen stooped to kiss her cheek before going out, she looked up at him
with a proud and admiring glance. "I hope you remembered to order
flowers for Margaret?"

He laughed. It was so characteristic of her to feel that even his love
affairs must be managed! "Yes, I ordered gardenias. Is that right?"

When she nodded amiably, he turned away and went out into the hall,
where he found his father waiting. "I wanted to see you a minute without
your mother," explained Mr. Culpeper, in a voice which sounded husky
because he tried to subdue it to a whisper. "It's just as well, I think,
that your mother shouldn't know that I'm having those houses you looked
at attended to."

"Oh, you are!" returned Stephen, with a curious mixture of thankfulness
an