Mrs. Carter drew a long breath and put her finger on her lip. Her astonished daughter viewed her a moment in alarm; then a look of understanding dawned in Emily’s eyes, and she stood quite still, waiting. Mrs. Carter tiptoed across the room and whispered: “Emily, do you think she paints her eyes?” Emily shook her head. “It’s her eyelashes. I looked hard at ’em, mama, and she does something to them. They look thick and soft like feathers. I think they’re just lovely!” “Emily!” “I do! That’s why her eyes look so nice. I’m going to find out how she does it, too.” “Emily Carter, aren’t you ashamed of yourself? I--oh!” Mrs. Carter wiped her eyes. “I’m so ashamed--for Willie! My son’s wife with make-believe eyelashes! It--it isn’t respectable!” “I wish I knew how she did it,” said Emily. “Anyway, I’m going to find out.” Mrs. Carter, having dropped into a chair, buried her face in her handkerchief. She had been longing for a good cry, and this was her first moment of real enjoyment. Her comfortable shoulders rose and fell convulsively, and her daughter caught the muffled sounds of grief. Emily did not heed them, but turned again to her mirror. She had short, blond eyelashes, a good two shades lighter than her blond hair. She viewed them now with the cold eye of an unbiased critic. “Light eyelashes are horrid,” she said to herself with a glitter of determination in her eye. “I must find out how she does it.” “My daughter-in-law!” sobbed Mrs. Carter under her breath. “My Willie’s wife, and--and she chalks her nose--I saw it myself!” V THE CARTERS, after a few days, tried to settle down and get used to it, but the new Mrs. Carter never quite let them do it. She kept taking them by surprise, with a kind of flying grace that left them speechless. She was making rapid conquests, too. Leigh had become her slave. He followed her about in an embarrassed state of subjugation, and spent long hours in his room writing sonnets, dedicated to Fanchon, or, more often, to “another’s wife.” Emily, meanwhile, was making some curiously subtle alterations in her own appearance, as yet undiscovered by her anxious mother. She had successfully negotiated a loan of three dollars from Daniel--for purposes unknown. In one way or another, the bride had made progress with them all; she had fascinated, or dazzled, or perplexed first one member of the family and then another. It was only Daniel, the student and philosopher, who still resisted. In the rôle of an observer, he maintained an unruffled tranquillity.