less and
less considerate of her. She still deemed it her right to be honored
guest wherever she chose to bestow the privilege of her company,
although her self-esteem had had many a quiet dig and a few hard
knocks in the recent months.

Sometimes the thought came to Cousin Ann that the young cousins were
perhaps taking their cue from the older generation. Were the older
ones quite as polite and cordial as they had been? Of course one might
expect brusqueness from Betty Throckmorton, but was there not a change
of manner even here at Buck Hill--not just rudeness from Mildred, who
was nothing but a spoiled child, but from Mr. and Mrs. Bucknor
themselves? Then there was Big Josh and Little Josh, both of whom had
made excuses about having her and had assured her they would write for
her to come to them later on and she had heard from neither of them.

She paused a moment and looked down on the happy young people. She
wondered if they realized how happy they were or if it would be
necessary to be old to appreciate the blessing of merely being young.
Suddenly a picture of her youth came back to her with a poignancy that
almost hurt. It was in that very hall and she was standing on those
very stairs--perhaps in that self-same spot. There was a house party
at Buck Hill and she had come from Peyton only that morning in a brand
new carriage with Billy driving the spanking pair of nags. Billy was
young then, but so trustworthy that her father had been willing to let
him take charge of his daughter. She remembered the rejoicing in the
family when she arrived. How they gathered around her and embraced
her! Robert Bucknor, the father of the present owner, was then a young
man. How gentle and tender he was with her, how courtly and kind!

When he saw her standing alone on the stairs looking down on the
assembled company he had sprung up the steps, two at a time, and taken
her hand in his: "Oh, Cousin Ann, how beautiful you are! If I could
only feel that the time might come when this would be your home--yours
and mine."

And she had answered, "Not yet, Cousin Robert, please don't talk about
it yet," because the memory of Bert Mason, the young lover who had
been killed in the war, was still too vivid for her to think of other
ties. "But you are very dear to me and if ever--" Thus she had put him
off.

While she had stood there talking to Robert Bucknor--young then and
now old and dead and gone--Billy, with ashen face, had come to