Paige and Marye came in from the glass extension where their father was pacing to and fro, smoking his bedtime cigar, and their mother began her invariable running comment concerning the day's events, rallying her children, tenderly tormenting them with their shortcomings--undarned stockings, lessons imperfectly learned, little household tasks neglected--she was always aware of and ready at bedtime to point out every sin of omission. "As fo' you, Paige, you are certainly a ve'y rare kind of Honey-bird, and I reckon Mr. Ba'num will sho'ly catch you some day fo' his museum. Who ever heard of a shif'less Yankee girl except you and Marye?" "O mother, how _can_ we mend _everything_ we tear? It's heartless to ask us!" "You don't have to try to mend _ev'y_thing. Fo' example, there's Jimmy Lent's heart----" A quick outbreak of laughter swept them--all except Paige, who flushed furiously over her first school-girl affair. "That poor Jimmy child came to me about it," continued their mother, "and asked me if I would let you be engaiged to him; and I said, 'Certainly, if Paige wants to be, Jimmy. I was engaiged myse'f fo' times befo' I was fo'teen----'" Another gale of laughter drowned her words, and she sat there dimpled, mischievous, naively looking around, yet in her careful soul shrewdly pursuing her wise policy of airing all sentimental matters in the family circle--letting in fresh air and sunshine on what so often takes root and flourishes rather morbidly at sixteen. "It's perfectly absurd," observed Ailsa, "at your age, Paige----" "Mother was married at sixteen! Weren't you, dearest?" "I certainly was; but _I_ am a bad rebel and _you_ are good little Yankees; and good little Yankees wait till they're twenty odd befo' they do anything ve'y ridiculous." "We expect to wait," said Paige, with a dignified glance at her sister. "You've four years to wait, then," laughed Marye. "What's the use of being courted if you have to wait four years?" "And you've three years to wait, silly," retorted Paige. "But I don't care; I'd rather wait. It isn't very long, now. Ailsa, why don't you marry again?" Ailsa's lip curled her comment upon the suggestion. She sat under the crystal chandelier reading a Southern newspaper which had been sent recently to Celia. Presently her agreeable voice sounded in appreciative recitation of what she was reading. "Hath not the morning dawned with added light? And shall not evening call another star Out of the infinite regions of the night To mark this day in Heaven? At last we are A nation among nations; and the world Shall soon behold in many a distant port Another flag unfurled!" "Listen, Celia," she said, "this is really beautiful: A tint of pink fire touched Mrs. Craig's cheeks, but she said nothing. And Ailsa went on, breathing out the opening beauty of Timrod's "Ethnogenesis": "Now come what may, whose favour need we court? And, under God, whose thunder need we fear?"