ry on dreadfully with the coloured
servants--but she said that was better than the disgrace of a
separation."

"But all that has nothing to do with me, mother. Oliver is an angel, and
this is every bit my fault, not Abby's." The violence in her soul had
passed, and she felt suddenly calm.

"Of course, darling, of course. Now that you see what it has led to, you
can stop it immediately."

They were so alike as they stood there facing each other, mother and
daughter, that they might have represented different periods of the same
life--youth and age meeting together. Both were perfect products of that
social order whose crowning grace and glory they were. Both were
creatures trained to feel rather than think, whose very goodness was the
result not of reason, but of emotion. And, above all, both were
gentlewomen to the innermost cores of their natures. Passion could not
banish for long that exquisite forbearance which generations had
developed from a necessity into an art.

"I can't stop his going with her, because that would make people think I
believed the things they say--but I can go, too, mother, and I will.
I'll borrow Susan's horse and go fox-hunting with them to-morrow."

Once again, as on the afternoon when she had heard of Oliver's illness
in New York, Mrs. Pendleton realized that her daughter's strength was
more than a match for hers when the question related to Oliver.

"But the children, dear--and then, oh, Jinny, you might get hurt."

To her surprise Jinny laughed.

"I shan't get hurt, mother--and if I did----"

She left her sentence unfinished, but in the break there was the first
note of bitterness that her mother had ever heard from her lips. Was it
possible, after all, that there was "more in it" than she had let appear
in her words? Was it possible that her passionate defence of Abby had
been but a beautiful pretence?

"I'll go straight down to the Treadwells' to ask Susan for her horse,"
she added cheerfully, "and you'll come over very early, won't you, to
stay with the children? Oliver always starts before daybreak."

"Yes, darling, I'll get up at dawn and come over--but, Jinny, promise me
to be careful."

"Oh, I'll be careful," responded Virginia lightly, as she went out on
the porch.

CHAPTER VII

THE WILL TO LIVE

"It's all horrid talk. There's not a word of truth in it," she thought,
true to the Pendleton point of view, as she turned into Old Street on
her way to the Trea