They both laughed. He said, “Well, I can’t give you a whole literary and imaginative background for our household. But you’ve left out the first and most interesting member. Perhaps I didn’t mention her in my letter to Doctor Hazzard. It’s my Grandmother Weyman. She lives above us, literally as well as figuratively, in the attic which she had fixed over into an exclusive apartment for herself when she returned from her last winter in Egypt, several years ago. You may or you may not get to know her really. Perhaps you’ll hardly ever see her. She’s rather disconcertingly invisible and exclusive. I mean, she’s exclusive even toward us, the family. Her contacts are with Silence and the Angels,—that kind of exclusiveness. She’s got it down to a science, how to be alone when she wants to be alone. You may think her—odd. People do.” Ariel was catching a rich, almost secret note of tenderness in Hugh’s voice. “He adores his grandmother,” she thought. “And he doesn’t think she’s odd. He thinks she’s perfect.” “Well, after Grandam, there’s my mother, of course. She’s perfectly visible, from all sides. And she’ll help you a lot, Ariel, in the—in the adjustments to a new life you’re in for now, I’m afraid. She’s just the sort of person to do that,—practical, sensible. Then there’s my kid sister Anne. Only she won’t seem kid-sisterish to you. She’s a month or two older than you are, in fact, and you may get to be great friends. Doctor Hazzard wrote that that was something you’d missed so far, contemporaries. She is a sophomore at Smith. “Glenn’s the student of the family. Got it from Grandfather Weyman, perhaps. He’s older than Anne—a year—and a junior at Yale. But he seems younger, you’ll see, in spite of reading Spengler and writing Greek sonnets that have made quite a stir—in the heart of a Greek professor or two, the only people who can read ’em. He’ll probably be rude to you. But you mustn’t mind him. He’s rude to us all just now. He’s got an idea that rudeness has some sort of affinity with intelligence. He drops the pose only for his friend, Prescott Enderly. Ever heard of him?” Ariel hadn’t. So Hugh explained about the young man’s fame and that he was to be Ariel’s fellow-guest for the present at Wild Acres. “When college opens again, there’ll be just you and mother and I at Wild Acres, unless you count Grandam, my grandmother, which you probably won’t. We’re not going to make it before dark, I’m afraid.” The time had come to switch on the headlights. Gray, cobwebby dusk was settling over the snowy world. Ariel, comforted by Hugh’s friendly explanations, warm and at home in her fur coat, was relaxed and confident at last. She asked, “And those children, Nicky and Persis? They aren’t related? ‘Uncle’ was only a manner of speaking?”