If the mother was will-less in the general concerns of life, she had shown one power in forming her daughters upon her own ideal of refinement. It was the way of life for men to be brutes, in a curious coarse fashion in speech, in appetites, in tastes; all that was an unaccountable arrangement of providence. So likewise it was befitting women to be chaste and refined, and to endure. Leonora comprehended her mother's sad position, yet she never held her father responsible. Men were made so, with a necessity for wickedness; some day she would be called upon to marry such a man, and suffer patiently, without scandal, a similar experience with vice. The woman's task was to keep fresh and unspotted herself, her home, her rooms, like some cool temple hidden away from summer heats and noisy commonness. This girl of eighteen knew the family story as thoroughly as her mother; knew the disgraceful episodes, the unstable condition of fortune which they must expect. Tranquilly, daintily she trod her way, avoiding "scenes," covering up brutality, ignoring beastly talk or unpleasant dinner companions; occupying herself with her fresh dresses, or household matters; now decorating a room in the old Four Corners, or watering the ivies that were replacing the gnarled woodbines. Mrs. Ellwell had never kept improper books from her daughters--it seemed so hopeless--and she read what her father read, accepting the lurid picture of life presented in the novels plentifully scattered about the house as probably correct, yet with an indifference and weariness. Some cool twilight at the Four Corners, when the little tasks of the day had been done, before the carriage arrived from the station with the unaccountable male element of life, she might sit for a reflective half hour wondering why it had all been made so; why passion was recklessly rampant in life; why the world creaked in its action, groaning over the follies so thickly spread in its course. In the daring of dreams, provoked by the long shadows and the deep quiet, other forms, strange possibilities, might flicker in her mind; but she was a woman! And soon it was time to dress for the long dinner.