Besides this property Widow Jones had found herself possessed, at her husband's death, of an immense tract of unproductive land down on Chesapeake Bay which could not be sold until Rosa, the younger girl, now eighteen, came of age. Meanwhile, the taxes vexed her soul. Hospitable, easy-going and accustomed to consider luxuries positive necessities, the family would have been severely straitened if it had not been for the nicety with which their various talents helped one another out. Caroline had excellent business ability and managed all the outside affairs. She drew the dividends on their railway stock, parleyed with lawyers, and engaged and settled with the hired men. In the burning August weather, when a dozen red-shirted Negroes were to be cared for, this slender young girl, in flaring straw hat and short gingham dress, mounted her horse and rode up and down the fields, a keen-eyed, cheery, sweet-voiced overseer. Regardless of her own meals she helped old black Jessie prepare the meals for the men in the little cabin, and there was no complaint as to quality or quantity under her liberal rule. She did the marketing also and bought the other supplies. Then Mrs. Jones took up the work, and her deft fingers and good taste converted crude materials into food and raiment for the quartet. She was a notable housekeeper and the best of neighbors, her round, jolly visage being sure to appear at every moment of need, and her chicken broth and jellies lingered pleasantly in the memory of the fretful convalescent. Minnie's function was the care of all the live animals on the farm. She had unerring judgment concerning mules and horses, understood the peculiarities of cows, and knew everything worth knowing about poultry and bees. She was a plump, happy-looking blonde, with a lovely hand, a neat foot, and a playfully witty tongue that, like her own bees, never stung the wise but kept fools at bay. Alert and busy from morning till night she gave no thought to the admirers who sighed for her smiles, but laughingly turned them over to Rosa, who had, she said, nothing else to do but to make herself charming. Rosa was the strongest possible contrast to her energetic sisters. Rarely beautiful, and gifted with an artistic faculty that nearly approached genius, she was apparently utterly devoid of ambition or sense of responsibility, and was content to be waited upon and cared for as if she was still the petted infant whose graces had at the outset won the willing service of every one about her.