Leigh had some mental gifts and a taste for poetry, which seemed to indicate a literary career, and his fond mother regarded him as a budding genius. There was a wide gap in age between the two younger and the two older Carters, occasioned by the death of three intervening children, and Mrs. Carter’s affections had always centered on her baby boy, as she still called Leigh--to his great indignation. Her pride had been in William, her sympathy for poor Dan, but her doting fondness was for Leigh. Mr. Carter did not approve of it. He had warned her more than once that she couldn’t bring up anything but an incubator chicken in that way and make a success of it. Leigh wasn’t exactly a success. The latent manhood in him had scarcely stirred. He was a tall, lanky youth with a handsome, boyish face and the eyes of a girl. He had been a dreamer, too, and had spent much time in reading romances from the news-stands; but he was a good boy, he had cultivated no vices, and “milksop” was the worst charge that other youths of his set could make against him. He had reached the impressionable age without falling deeply in love, and his mind and heart happened to be in a peculiarly receptive state when Fanchon suddenly burst upon his vision. Her beauty, the subtle charm and mystery of those fawn-like eyes, and her caressing voice, captured his youthful fancy. He could understand why William loved her, and he became at once her slave and worshiper. Then, when he saw the attitude of the family revealed in pitiless criticism, he became her still more devoted champion. Fanchon saw it, and she coaxed the boy into still deeper infatuation. It was her triumph to secure at least one ally in a hostile family, and she used him as a buffer. She always had a kind word for Leigh, a soft pat of the hand, an errand which she conferred as a favor. Leigh, immersed in romantic visions, saw her as the loveliest and most persecuted of beings, and he was ready to give battle to the entire family in her behalf. As Emily expressed it, he would have made himself into Sir Walter Raleigh’s cloak for Fanchon to tread upon. The storm that had followed upon her disappearance on horseback had beaten upon Leigh’s nerves. He had lashed himself into a dumb fury in the solitude of his room because his father and mother dared to doubt his paragon, and William, her husband, merely sat and waited for her to come back. William’s supineness was the last straw. Leigh had been in a frenzy when Fanchon finally returned, and the meeting on the stairs and her soft kiss of gratitude had gone to his head. He had refused to join a game of baseball that afternoon because he wanted to go home and complete a poem to his sister-in-law.