In the parlour of her home Harriet Blair sat, awaiting the arrival of her brother Austen from Washington, where he had gone to bring back their dead brother's child. Harriet, at twenty-six, in lustreless mourning, was handsome and, some might have said, cold. Her face was finely chiselled, and framed with light hair waving from its parting in curves regular as the flutings of a shell. There was a poise, a composure about this Harriet, making her unlike the tall, shy girl of nine years before. As the bell rang she laid down her book and rose, and a second later Austen entered, leading a little girl with a round, short-cropped head. His eyes met his sister's in greeting, then he loosed the child's hand. "This is your Aunt Harriet, Alexina," he said, and stepped across the room to stand before the mantel and watch the two. Harriet bent and kissed the small cheek. Demonstration, even to this extent, meant much for a Blair. Then she crossed the room. She was more than ordinarily tall for a woman, with form proportioned to length of limb, and the beauty of her carriage gained by her unconsciousness of it. Having pulled the bell-cord she came back, smiling, calmly expectant, looking from Austen to the child, who, seated now on the edge of a chair, was regarding her with grave eyes. "She has a strong look of Alexander," said Harriet, consideringly, "and a little look of you--and of me. She is a Blair, though I can see her mother, too, about the mouth." The child moved under the scrutiny, but her gaze, returning the study, did not falter. Harriet laughed; was it at this imperturbability? "I think," she decided, "we may consider her a Blair." Then to the white maid-servant entering: "You may order supper, Nelly, for Mr. Blair and myself. This is Alexina, and, I should say, tired out. Suppose you give her a warm bath and let her go right to bed--have you her trunk key, Austen?--and I will send a tray up with her supper afterward." Then, as Nelly took the key and went out, Harriet addressed her brother. "For, apart from the hygienic advantages of the bath before the supper, I confess"--with faintly discernible amusement--"to a fancy for the ceremony as a form, so to speak, emblematic of a moral washing and a fresh start." She ended with a raising of her brows as she regarded her brother. Austen Blair had no use for levity. Mild as this was, he dismissed it curtly. "I would suggest," he said, "that you avoid personalities; it can but be injudicious for any child to hear itself discussed." Again Harriet laughed; she was provokingly good-humoured. "Coming from her nine years of life beneath Molly's expansive nature, I don't think you need fear for what she'll gather from me." She took the child's hand and lifted her from the chair. "Here is Nelly, Alexina; go with her and do what she says. Say good-night to your uncle. Supper, Austen."