her so far away? Perhaps, after all, he had not wanted her.
Nobody wanted her--dreadful thought!--unless it were Aunt Cora; and
Charlotte knew in her heart Uncle Landor was wise in deciding she was
not to travel about with Aunt Cora any more.

Since she had been taken away, a child of seven, her memories of this
southern town had grown vague, and it seemed strange to hear Uncle
Landor refer to it as her home. He also said it was the sort of a
background she needed for the next few years, until she should be
ready for college. After that he promised, if she still wished it, she
might come and keep house for him.

But it would be so long. How could she stand it? If only she might
have gone to boarding-school. Why had Aunt Caroline and Aunt Virginia
agreed to her coming? They did not like her. Nothing she did pleased
them. Charlotte looked about for a refuge where she might fling
herself down and cry her heart out. She rose and stole on tiptoe into
the drawing-room.

Here the same absolute order prevailed. She felt sure the carved
chairs and sofas, with their covering of satin brocade, had occupied
these same positions ever since they first appeared on the scene when
Aunt Caroline made her debut, more than thirty years ago. Fancy Aunt
Caroline having a party! Aunt Virginia had described it to her, but it
sounded unreal. Thirty years ago was too far in the past. Charlotte's
own mother had been a little girl then.

The buhl cabinet near the window, the inlaid chess table in the corner
beside the white marble mantel, even the folds of the handsome lace
curtains, seemed petrified into their present positions. For thirty
years the mantle mirror had been reflecting the Dresden clock and
candelabra, and the crystal pendants of the chandelier; the face and
figure that confronted Charlotte in the pier glass was, however,
something new and alien.

It was a brown face with blue eyes that danced with mischief or
flashed with anger, or grew soft with entreaty beneath their black
lashes, as occasion might demand. Her hair, too, was brown, and
shadowed her face in a wavy mass held most objectionable by her aunts.
That a girl barely fourteen should have decided views on the subject
of dress, and insist upon wearing what she called a pompadour and
having her belts extremely pointed in front, was surprising to Aunt
Virginia, shocking to Aunt Caroline.

As she stood facing her own image, the sound of sweeping skirts on the
stairway