For political rancor time is not an emollient panacea. Sectional hatred bites hard on memory, as acid into copper, and the perspective of years of absence failed to alter in any degree the rough angles, ugly scars, and deep shadows that characterized the people's portrait of Judge Kent. Impotence to correct intensifies public sense of wrong, and compulsory submission to injury borne silently garners bitterness which in actual strife would effervesce. Only those who lived in the Southern seaboard and Gulf States during the long, stinging years that followed the surrender at Appomattox can understand why the names of Grant and Sherman stirred little enmity, when compared with the unfathomable execration and contempt aroused by the civil Federal vultures that settled like a cloud over State, county, and municipal treasuries. The battening of this horde soon reduced Southern finances and credit to a grewsome skeleton. In that stifling Ragnarok, family estates feudal in extent were seized as "abandoned lands" and parcelled out to freedman, who had been enticed to abandon them in order to succeed their masters in ownership. "Patriots are paupers now," was the grim proverb current among Confederates, and the very few who showed conditions bordering on comfort were, in public estimation, required to "stand and deliver" an explanation of the fortuitous circumstances that saved them from the general ruin.

Judge Kent's judicial career had been disastrous to the interests of many throughout the State, and among the legions who improved their fortunes by coming south to "reconstruct and to dispense justice," he was especially detested by the citizens of Y——. To Eglah, his insistence upon returning to Nutwood was explicable solely on the hypothesis that speculative reverses had demanded the sale of his own property and swallowed the result; hence his resources were exhausted.

Recollection of slights, insinuations, invectives, and jeers that had imbittered her childhood did not lend beckoning glamour to the home-coming; and without the powerful protection of Mrs. Maurice's presence she suspected she was making a social plunge with no net spread to succor. Deliberately and systematically she planned the gradual renovation and, to a limited degree, the refurnishing of the beautiful old house where it now seemed her future must be spent. A new close carriage and stylish trap were shipped in advance, and Mrs. Mitchell went down to superintend preparations for occupancy of Nutwood, leaving Judge Kent and his daughter to follow a week later.

Old Aaron was stooping badly and stiff with rheumatism, but refused to relax his grasp on the butler's reins; Celie maintained her iron sway in the kitchen; her two daughters were eager to discharge the duties of housemaids, and Oliver, hopelessly bed-ridden, claimed that his son had the best right to succeed him as coachman.

When, on the morning after her arrival, Eglah entered the cedar-panelled dining-room, and seated herself at the head of the table, where glittered the tall, silver coffee urn with Dirce and her beast in bold relief, she almost expected to see her grandmother's face reflected there as in days gone by, and involuntarily looked over her shoulder with a telepathic impression that behind her chair stood the stately, old, crÊpe-coifed dame disputing usurpation. Judge Kent drained his second cup of creamless tea, held up the thin, fluted china to examine the twisted signature of the manufacturer, listened to its protest as he carefully thumped it, and pushed it aside.

"Eglah, I do not like the room where I slept last night, and I wish a change made to-day."

"Why, father? I selected the handsomest room in the house for you. That has always been considered the best—set apart as the guest-chamber."

"Well, as I am not a guest, I have no desire to appropriate the perquisites. I prefer the room opening into the library."

"Not my grandfather's room—not where grandmother hoarded sacred—" She paused, and the silver fruit knife, with which she peeled a peach, clanged sharply as it fell.

"Exactly. I mean the museum of rebel relics. I wish them removed at once, and my own things unpacked and arranged there."

"Father, it was grandmother's expressed wish to keep that——"

"It is rather late to evoke sentiment in her behalf. She left nothing undone to hamper, annoy, and inconvenience us, and——"

"Father! De mortuis—! Although I am her grandchild under protest on her part, she gave me her estate, and the one room she loved ought to be reserved just as she wished."

As she leaned to the right of the urn, to look squarely at her father, her face was close to Mrs. Mitchell, who noted its pallor and an ominous curve in the thin lips. Judge Kent beat a muffled tattoo with the prongs of his fork on the handle of a spoon lying near. He smiled, eyed her fixedly, and inclined his head in dismissal.

"It is not a question for discussion, but a simply imperative matter of obedience to instructions. I must have the change made at once, and if extra help is needed Aaron will see immediately that it is secured."

From the bowl of flowers in the middle of the table he selected a sprig of ruby stock-gilly, inhaled its fragrance, fastened it in his coat, and strolled out on the front colonnade.

Over the girl's white face flowed a deep, dull red, and for a moment her slender hands covered it. Then she touched the bell at her left, and smiled bravely at the butler who answered it.

"Uncle Aaron, put a pitcher of tea on the ice, so that whenever father needs it I can have it cold. Tell Ma'm Celie I have not had such a good breakfast since I wore short skirts and my hair down my back. Her coffee was perfect, the waffles and beaten biscuit the very best I ever tasted, and the brain croquettes could not be improved."

"Yes, Missie, she thought she would please you. She don't forget how you loved waffles and honey when you used to wear bibs and set in your high chair."

Having invested all in a teraph of fine gold, its votary sees with vague uneasiness a gradual dimness blur the sheen, and when, under friction, the gilt surface melts away and only corroding brass remains, the shock is severe. However slow the transformation, the final disillusion is not softened.

Standing in the memorial room, with her arms resting on the mantel shelf, Eglah looked up at the frank, noble patrician face of General Maurice, until an unsuspected undercurrent of pride and tenderness suddenly surged at the thought that his blood ran in her veins. Whatever ills might overtake her, no bar sinister could ever mar, no breath of blame could cloud the lustre of this side of her family shield. Studying the portrait above her, and that of her lovely young mother on the opposite wall, she began for the first time to take possession of her Maurice birthright, conscious that here her pride could never drag anchor. The room that from her nursery days had always been Marcia's remained unoccupied after her death, and to this apartment Eglah and Eliza removed every cherished object Mrs. Maurice had stored in her husband's old study, arranging pictures, books, furniture as she had left them. No word of comment passed the locked lips of either woman, but, when all had been adjusted, Eglah fastened the door and handed the key to Mrs. Mitchell.

"You know she preferred 'Grand Dukes' and Cape jasmines, so we will keep some in front of the portrait, and once a week we must see that no dust collects here."

In the future, stretching before the young mistress of Nutwood gleamed two goals—friendly, social recognition of her father, and the compilation and publication of a volume containing a sketch of his career, written by herself, selected speeches delivered in Congress, and certain judicial decisions relative to Confederate property, individual and corporation, which had tarred him heavily throughout the State, where they were promulgated. To the attainment of these aims she purposed to devote her energies, believing that the accomplishment of the biographical scheme would inevitably remove the barrier of estrangement that had shut her from her father's confidence.

After a week spent in looking over Nutwood, visiting Mrs. Mitchell's home and inspecting the condition of gin houses, mills, fences, and cabins on the plantations, the appointed day arrived when Mr. Whitfield came with books and a large tin box to give a detailed account of his stewardship.

Eglah noticed that while he held and pressed her fingers cordially, he merely bowed, and seemed not to see Judge Kent's proffered hand. After the interview she understood, when Eliza told her that during the period habeas corpus was suspended by Federal authority the husband of Mr. Whitfield's only sister had been imprisoned for "treasonable language" by the desire and co-operation of Judge Kent, and that distress of mind and anxiety on her husband's account had precipitated the death of the wife before his release from jail.

Thin, wiry, grizzled, keenly alert, the lawyer's light-blue eyes dwelt chiefly on the girl's face, save when her father asked a question or a fuller explanation of some statement. Now and then Judge Kent, watchful but studiedly debonair and suave, glanced over a paper, and once he challenged the accuracy of a computation of interest, which on revision proved correct. They were grouped around an oval table in the library, an open tin box in the centre, flanked by two ledgers and piles of papers, and Eglah sat close to Mr. Whitfield's right, while her father took his place immediately opposite her.

She leaned a little forward, her arms crossed on the mahogany, and looked up steadily at the lawyer, but when he offered a paper for examination she smiled and shook her head.

"You must perceive the farcical futility of talking business to such an inexperienced girl," said Judge Kent, stretching out his hand to take a bundle of stock certificates his daughter had motioned away.

"Really you surprise me, because, from all we have heard of her college training, I was prepared to find Marcia's child an expert."

"Father knows I can calculate interest, and that I understand bookkeeping, but he would be ashamed of me if I suspected or hunted for errors in the accounts of a friend who for so many years has kindly guarded my financial interests."

The lawyer patted her hand and smiled.

"That sounds like your dear mother, and I am glad you have her low, clear voice, like the melody of a silver harp string; but your father is quite right in urging careful inspection of matters that have been so long intrusted solely to me. Now, I believe we have gone over the important points, except that railroad muddle, which is still undecided. I brought suit over a year ago, and as the new branch and spurs run through the middle of one of your best cotton fields on Willow Creek plantation, I hope the next term of court will give us a satisfactory settlement. Boynton is a good overseer—not a graduate of a college of technology nor an agricultural chemist, who knows from looking at the soil the exact day when the Noachian flood left your lands dry, nor is he a new-fangled 'manager,' but he is just an overseer of auld lang syne; a trifle lax, but our old-fashioned plantation rules are dead as Pharaoh, and he winks at lapses he cannot prevent. However, he keeps the repair machinery busy on fences and stables, the negroes like him, and you will find your leases and contracts all signed properly. Of course you are aware your grandmother left instructions that when you married, or as soon as you were twenty-one, $5,000 should be paid to Mrs. Mitchell. I consulted the bishop, and we thought it best to defer this matter until her return to America, but it should not be delayed longer, and here is the check, which you can hand to her. With the payment of this legacy her annual allowance ends."

Eglah opened the table drawer, drew out an envelope, and laid it before him.

"Enclose, address, and seal it. Before you leave the house, please deliver it to her."

"Have you any questions to ask? Do not hesitate, if there is anything else you do not understand, anything you wish to know."

"Absolutely nothing, except an adequate way of thanking you for all your patient goodness. If you can explain how I shall accomplish this, you will increase my huge debt."

Judge Kent rose and smiled benignly.

"Eglah, I wonder it has not occurred to you that a proper recognition of the value of Mr. Whitfield's services ought to involve a willingness and effort on your part to relieve him entirely of the burden of responsibility he has borne so long, and which, under my guidance, you are quite capable of assuming. You are of age, and the trusteeship should end at once."

For fully a moment she pondered the suggestion, then laid her hand on the lawyer's arm.

"Tell me frankly whether you prefer to surrender the management of our business affairs? Irrespective of my individual feeling, your wishes alone must decide the matter, and you can best determine if the tax upon your time is too onerous."

Mr. Whitfield drew the tin box before her, and pointed to a large envelope marked "Last Will and Testament of Patricia Maurice."

"I imagine you scarcely comprehend some of the conditions that place me in a peculiarly embarrassing position. Here is the will of your grandmother; I preserved for you the original draft in her handwriting. The last page bears upon the question under discussion. Read it now, and then, whatever your wishes, I individually shall obey them."

Judge Kent seated himself, lifted the decanter in front of him, and filled a glass.

"Meantime, will you join me in a glass of sherry?"

"No, thank you; my doctor restricts me to claret."

Very slowly Eglah read the broad sheet, and her countenance changed, clouded, as she betrayed her annoyance by taking her under lip between her teeth.

"We beg your pardon, Mr. Whitfield; we had entirely forgotten that clause. Unless I marry, your trusteeship continues until I am thirty years old, should I live so long."

"Not necessarily mine. I can resign, or death may release me, but some other person would be required."

"A most unjust and absurd provision," said the judge, draining his second glass, and striving to conceal his remembrance of the fact that Mrs. Maurice had expressly forbidden his connection with the trusteeship.

Mr. Whitfield smiled.

"We lawyers all know testators use only their individual standards of justice, wisdom, and fitness."

Eglah had folded the paper, replaced it in the envelope, and turned to the lawyer.

"It appears that if for any reason you should relinquish this responsibility, your successor is already appointed, and in that event I should become practically the ward of the Chancery Court, which never resigns, never dies."

She looked straight into her father's watching eyes, and continued slowly, distinctly:

"I shall not marry. Your stewardship, dear Mr. Whitfield, involves some additional years of trouble for you, but I am so deeply grateful to you, I shall certainly try to cause as little annoyance as possible."

A shutter swung open, the sun flashed in, and she crossed the room to exclude the glare.

Returning, she paused behind her father's chair, put her arms around his neck, and interlaced her fingers. Without an instant's hesitation he elevated and shook his shoulders so decidedly her hands fell to her side.

"Sit down, my dear."

He built a pyramid with his plump, white, carefully manicured fingers, and the brilliant eyes he fixed on the man beside him held a challenge.

"If the sanctity of wills were not debatable, our profession would be barred from browsing in rich pastures of litigation; and 'undue influence,' fostering injustice, has bred strife since its innings as far back as the wrongs of Esau. As sole heir to the Maurice fortune, my daughter can follow her individual wishes and judgment concerning the management of what is indisputably her own, since there could be no family contestants."

He bowed to Mr. Whitfield.

"Judge Kent, if Eglah so decided, there would be, on my part, no contest."

"You are both mistaken. There would inevitably result a destroying contest, with my conscience and my self-respect."

Mr. Whitfield caught his breath as he noted the transformation of the girl's face into a blanched, stony mask. Carefully replacing every package of papers in the box, she looked under the table to be sure none had fluttered to the floor, turned the key in the brass padlock, and pushed the box toward the lawyer.

"Mr. Whitfield, I have several times regretted that this inheritance was left to me; to-day I deplore it. While I gratefully appreciate your wise and faithful guardianship, I confess I very naturally feel sorry my own dear father cannot manage my affairs; but I believe that all wills of sane persons should be held sacred—absolutely inviolable. If the Maurice estate is mine, it is on specified conditions that I would no more break than the ten commandments. I shall not marry; therefore the trusteeship must continue until I am thirty, and of all men in the world, except my father, I certainly prefer you should retain it. Only in strict conformity to the provisions by which I inherit will I remain at Nutwood or spend its income; but my father's opinions and wishes are very dear to me, and since he objects strenuously to some of the conditions which naturally wound him, I intend to leave to him the decision of the rejection or acceptance of the inheritance. Grandmother declared that if the terms of trusteeship were violated, it was her wish that I should receive merely the annuity allowed me since her death, and that her entire estate—including Nutwood and the plantations—should be given in perpetuity to childless widows of Confederate soldiers in this State; women whose husbands and sons had been lost in defence of the South. That you as trustee might not contest a flagrant violation of the will is merely an expression of your personal reluctance to chide me publicly; but it is a dubious compliment to any sense of right and justice. Now, father, shall we relinquish the estate to the widows and find a home elsewhere? Sometimes I think it would be best for us in many ways, but you shall decide. Shall we go or stay?"

Steadily she faced him, cool and firm as a granite gargoyle, but his nostrils flared, his teeth gleamed under his grey mustache, and, tilting back his chair, he laughed unpleasantly.

"My dear, histrionism is not becoming to you—especially without chiton, diploÏdion, and fillets. Either your Alma Mater is weak along lines of elocutionary training or you do it so little credit you never earned your diploma. Your pretty little prologue is as preposterous as the senseless limitations you are embracing so dramatically; but you are now fully of age—except in Mrs. Maurice's opinion—and since the inheritance is yours, not mine, you must accept the consequences of your own tragic avowal and tie up your hands for some years to come. At least I can congratulate you that all responsibility devolves upon so astute and experienced a trustee as Mr. Whitfield, who will watch over your interests till silver threads adorn your locks and you wear spectacles. Since this matter is settled, be so good as to spare me any—Come in, Aaron. What is it?"

The butler had knocked twice, and now beckoned to some one behind him.

"A boy with a despatch."

The messenger held up the yellow telegram.

"Senator Allison Kent."

Very deliberately he wrote his name in the receipt book, pausing to trim the pencil tied to it; then, bowing to Mr. Whitfield, "With your permission," he opened the envelope. Eglah saw his face flush, and he coughed twice in a peculiar way she knew indicated deep annoyance.

"Any answer, sir?" asked the boy.

"Yes, but you must wait for it."

He took up a pen, drummed with fingers of his left hand on the table, and rose.

"As I find it necessary to consult a record before replying to this telegram, I must beg you, sir, to excuse me. I hope you will have time to enjoy some of our fine fruit to-day."

At the door he called to the butler, standing in a side hall.

"Aaron, order dinner at three o'clock, and the trap at four. I must take the 'cannon-ball train.'"

He and the messenger disappeared, and after a moment Eglah withdrew her eyes from the vacant chair opposite, and turned to her guest.

"I think you brought some papers you wish me to sign. May I do so now?"

"When you have examined them, they must be signed in the presence of a notary public, whom you can find at my office, or, if you prefer, he shall come here."

He laid a roll of type-written documents on the table and rose.

"Shall I leave the box with you for to-day?"

Impatiently she pushed it aside.

"Take it away—keep it. I hope I may never set my eyes on it again."

The brooding shadow on her pale, rigid face made the lawyer's blue eyes cloudy.

"Dear child, I have always been the intimate friend of the Maurice family. I loved your sweet, young mother, and I hope you know I am willing to help you in every way possible, and that you will not hesitate to call upon me."

"Thank you. I am so sure of your sincerity, I shall begin at once to ask your counsel. There are social complications that make a pleasant residence here problematical, and consideration of the course most expedient for me to pursue leaves me in doubt and perplexity. I have thought of opening the house and grounds two weeks hence, in order to celebrate my father's birthday by a fÊte champÊtre, to which every family inscribed on grandmother's visiting list should be invited. I prefer to throw rather than pick up the gauntlet. You thoroughly comprehend the situation, and I should like your advice."

"Wait a while. Go slowly; social wounds do not heal by first intention. Be chary of invitations, and do not hunt for challenges. Hold your own firmly, but courteously, and in time I think you will win. For your father's sake, try to conciliate the members of his church; they are an influential social factor here. Mrs. Maurice's old friends will rally around 'Marcia's baby,' and you must be patient. Later, when sure of your ground, you can give all the festivals you like without receiving an avalanche of 'regrets' that would easily paper your hall. My wife and the girls will call at once, and I hope you will come to us just as often as possible; but whenever you wish to see me, drive down to the office, or write me, as, for some reasons, it is advisable I should be here very rarely. Dear child, while your features are like your handsome father's, you resemble your mother in many ways, and I am glad to find you have the crystal conscience and flawless instinct of honor that all men reverenced in General Maurice. Good-bye. I have overstayed my time. Tell Boynton to bring up the two horses I had broken and trained for your saddle. One of them, the bay, took blue ribbon at the State fair last fall, and there is no better stock south of Kentucky."

She walked with him half way down the hall, and they shook hands.

"Good-bye, Mr. Whitfield; thank you for many things. You will find Ma-Lila in the dining-room, and whatever you think she ought to know of to-day's interview, I prefer you should tell her. She is indeed my second mother."

After a while she went slowly to her father's room. The door was half open, but she paused and knocked.

He stood looking over an old account book, and, without glancing up, said fretfully:

"Well, what is it?"

"Father, I came to pack your valise."

"It is already packed."

"May I come in? I want to tell you——"

"No. You will say nothing that I should wish to hear."

"Will you allow me to see the telegram which I fear annoys you?"

"The ashes only are at your service—all that remains of it."

"Tell me, at least, why you are going, and where?"

"First to Washington. Elsewhere as circumstances may direct."

"Please let me go with you——"

"Most certainly you stay where you are."

"Father—my father!" She advanced toward him, but recalling the shudder with which he had shaken her arms from his shoulders, she stepped back to the threshold.

"Oh, father, you are cruel! You know you are breaking my heart!"

The sob, the passion of pain in her voice, smote and hurt him sorely, but he did not falter an instant.

"In breaking your will, your heart may be healed."

He had not looked at her, and all the while the index finger of his right hand moved up and down columns of figures, searching for some item, which was finally found and marked. Leaning against the door, she watched him until Aaron rang the dinner bell.

"Father, may I drive you to the station?"

"No."

"Then I prefer to say good-bye here, as I am going to my own room."

"As you please. Good-bye, Eglah."

"I wish I could share this trouble, whatever it may be that calls you away; but since you elect to condemn me to the torture of suspense, I have no alternative but to endure it as best I can. Good-bye, my dear father."

She held out both hands, but, instead of approaching her, he opened a glass door leading to the colonnade and disappeared.

The velvet, paternal touch caressing her tenderly from the days of her babyhood had, during the last two years, stiffened, hardened into a steel gauntlet, strangling her.

The betrayal of his selfish and unscrupulous desire to violate the provisions of the will had painfully startled and keenly mortified her; but the barb that sank deepest in her sore, aching heart was the realization of her father's deliberate plan to humiliate and punish her. Was his persistent effort to force a marriage with Mr. Herriott based on the determination to hasten her unlimited control of her grandmother's estate? Until now, this explanation had not occurred to her, because the clause binding her to the trusteeship—which rankled ceaselessly in his mind—had made no impression on her memory. Maturely she deliberated, weighing the past in the light of the new supposition, but this solution was rejected as inadequate. In view of Mr. Herriott's indefinite absence and studied silence, her father's obstinate adherence to his matrimonial ultimatum remained inexplicable. That day ended her overtures for reconciliation; and she laid the ax to the root of her olive tree.

The next morning was Sunday—the first after their return—and she ordered the carriage.

"Little mother, I am going with you to eleven o'clock service, and I am sure you understand it is a tribute of respect to grandmother, that after many years of absence I attend first the church she helped to build."

Curious eyes watched for Miss Kent in another church, where her father had worshipped, and carried her mother, and when, daintily robed in white, Eglah walked with the overseer's wife along the Methodist aisle and sat down in the Maurice pew, a sudden mist blurred the vision of many in the congregation, and old Dr. Eggleston wiped his spectacles and whispered to his wife:

"Poor Marcia's baby! I can never forget her pitiful little wail for an hour after she was born. Ah, her face is like a lily just lifted, hunting for its God."

Henceforth social lines were indicated by an apparently trivial distinction; the small circle that in former years received Judge Kent, and the strangers and new residents of Y—— spoke of the mistress of Nutwood as Miss Kent; but to the mass of old families she was always "Marcia's child," or "Mrs. Maurice's granddaughter."

Very few typical Southern homes, representing wealth, liberal education, and cultured artistic taste when 1861 dawned, have survived the jagged wounds of war, the still more destructive bayonet-loaded harrow of "reconstruction," and the merciless mildew of poverty that tarnished ante-bellum splendor.

Nutwood escaped comparatively intact, because, while the owner lived, her revenue—drawn in part from European investments made early in the war by friends in London—enabled her to maintain and repair the property until her plantations could be readjusted under the new rÉgime; and, after her death, the managers of the estate had jealously guarded it from the inroads of decay.

Outside conditions, social and domestic, had changed utterly; new canons prevailed, new manners of strange laxity rolled over former dikes of purity, refinement, and decorum; but the turbid tide of up-to-date flippancy broke and ebbed from the tall iron gates of the old house on the hill. Here decadence was excluded, and one coming into the long-closed mansion inhaled a vague haunting aroma, as if old furniture, glass, china, books, paintings, and silver had been sprinkled with powdered sandalwood, lavender, and rose leaves that blended with the subtle pervading atmosphere of hereditary racial pride.

It resembled other homes in Y—— as little as some gallery of brilliant, glaring impressionist pictures suggests a cabinet of exquisite miniatures, rich mosaics, and carved ivory, where the witching glamour of mellowing centuries hovers.

Eglah found only two scars of time. The conservatory was empty and closed, and in the rear of the house several rows of low brick walls showed where formerly stood what Mrs. Maurice called her "grapery," a sunny spot enclosed with glass, alluring to her grandchild, who had climbed a step-ladder to reach shouldered clusters, as large as her head, of translucent, golden Chasselas.

No strange new element invaded dwelling or grounds; the same brown hand that gave her "hot-water tea" when she sat in her high chair now placed her chocolate before her, and she missed only old Hector, who had followed his master to happier hunting grounds, and King Herod, gone, doubtless, to share the punishment of his namesake. The thoroughbred horses and silver-grey Jerseys were fine as she remembered them, and though they now seemed smaller, the white game fowls were as beautiful as of yore, when she toddled after her grandmother to feed them in the enclosure to which they were restricted.

Years had made no alteration, save that a fond, trusting child came back a sadly anxious woman, fronting the world with calm defiance, but shivering silently under a numbing shadow of brooding dread that time might deepen, but could not dispel.