rown so large as to be almost unwieldy. But her tropical
coloring retained its vividness, retained its breath-taking quality of
picturesqueness, retained its alluring languor. She sat now holding a
huge fan. Indeed, since the day that Honey had piled the fans on the
beach, Chiquita had never been without one in her hand. Scarlet, the
scarlet of her lost pinions, seemed to be her color. Her gown was
scarlet.

Lulu had not grown big, but she had grown round. That look of the
primitive woman which had made her strange, had softened and sobered.
Her beaute troublante had gone. Her face was, the face of a happy woman.
The maternal look in her eyes was duplicated by the married look in her
figure. She was always busy. Even now, though she chattered, she sewed;
her little fingers fluttered like the wings of an imprisoned bird.
Indeed, she looked like a little sober mother-bird in her gray and
brown draperies. She was the best housewife among them. Honey lacked no
creature comfort.

Clara also had filled out; in figure, she had improved; her elfin
thinness had become slimness, delicately curved and subtly contoured.
Also her coloring had deepened; she was like a woman cast in gold.
But her expression was not pleasant. Her light, gray-green eyes had a
petulant look; her thin, red lips a petulant droop. She was restless;
something about her moved always. Either her long slender fingers
adjusted her hair or her long slender feet beat a tattoo. And ever her
figure shifted from one fluid pose to another. She wore jewels in her
elaborately arranged hair, jewels about her neck, on her wrists, on
her fingers. Her green draperies were embroidered in beads. She was, in
fact, always dressed, costumed is perhaps the most appropriate word.
She dressed Peterkin picturesquely too; she was always, studying the
illustrations in their few books for ideas. Clara was one of those women
at whom instinctively other women gaze--and gaze always with a question
in their eyes.

Peachy was at the height of her blonde bloom; all pearl and gold, all
rose and aquamarine. But something had gone out of her face--brilliance.
And something had come into it--pathos. The look of a mischievous boy
had turned to a wild gipsy look of strangeness, a look of longing mixed
with melancholy. In some respects there was more history written on her
than on any of the others. But it was tragic history. At Angela's birth
Peachy had gone insane. There had come times when fo