Annie, who signed herself "Anne Melrose von Behrens," was the real dictator in the various circles of the allied families, and had a fashion of finding herself supreme in larger circles, as well. Annie was thirty-seven or eight, tall, thin, ash-blonde, superb in manner and bearing. Nature had been generous to her, but she had done far more for herself than Nature had. Her matchless skin, her figure, her hands, her voice, were all the result of painstaking and intelligent care. Annie had been a headstrong, undisciplined girl twenty years ago. She had come back from a European visit, at twenty-three, with a vague if general reputation of being "a terror." But Annie was clever, and she had real charm. She spoke familiarly of European courts, had been presented even in inaccessible Vienna. She spoke languages, quoted poets, had great writers and painters for her friends, and rippled through songs that had been indisputably dedicated, in flowing foreign hands, to the beautiful Mademoiselle Melrose. Society bowed before Annie; she was the sensation of her winter, and the marriage she promptly made was the most brilliant in many winters.

Annie proceeded to bear her sober, fine, dull, and devoted Hendrick two splendid sons, and thus riveted to herself his lasting devotion and trust. The old name was safe, the millions would descend duly to young Hendrick and Piet. The family had been rich, conspicuous, and respected in the city, since its sturdy Holstein cattle had browsed along the fields of lower Broadway, but under Annie's hands it began to shine. Annie's handsome motor-cars bore the family arms, her china had been made in the ancestral village, two miles from Rotterdam, and also carried the shield. Her city home, in Fifth Avenue, was so magnificent, so chastely restrained and sober, so sternly dignified, that it set the cue for half the other homes of the ultra-aristocratic set. Annie's servants had been in the Von Behrens family for years; there was nothing in the Avenue house, or the Newport summer home, that was not as handsome, as old, as solid, as carven, as richly dull, or as purely shining, as human ingenuity could contrive to have it. Collectors saved their choicest discoveries for Annie; and there was no painter in the new world who would not have been proud to have Annie place a canvas of his among her treasures from the old.

If family relics were worth preserving, what could be more remarkable than Annie's Washington letter, her Jefferson tray, her Gainsboroughs of the Murisons who had been the only Americans so honoured by the painter? Melrose and Von Behrens honours crowded each other—here was the thin old silver "shepherdess" cup awarded that Johanna von Behrens who had won a prize with her sheep, while Washington was yet a boy; and here the quaint tortoise-shell snuff-box that a great prince, homeless and unknown, had given the American family that took him in; and the silver buttons from Lafayette's waistcoat that the great Frenchman had presented Colonel Horace Murison of the "Continentals." These things were not thrust at the visitor, nor indeed were they conspicuous among the thousand other priceless souvenirs that Annie had gathered about her.

"Rather nice, isn't it?" Annie would say, abstractedly, when some enthusiastic girl pored over the colonial letters or the old portraits. "See here, Margaret," she might add, casually, "do you see the inside of this little slipper, my dear? Read what's written there: 'In these slippers Deborah Murison danced with Governor Winthrop, on the night of her fifteenth birthday, July 1st, 1742.' Isn't that rather quaint?"

Annie could afford to be casual, to be abstracted. In her all the pride of the Melrose and Murison families was gathered; hers was an arrogance so sure of itself, a self-confidence so supreme, that the world questioned it no more than it questioned the heat of the sun. The old silver, the Copleys, and the colonial china, the Knickerbocker "court chests" with their great locks of Dutch silver, and the laces that had been shown at the Hague two hundred years before, were all confirmed, all reinforced, as it were, by the power and prosperity of to-day. It was no by-gone glory that made brilliant the lives of Hendrick and Anne Melrose von Behrens. Hendrick's cousins and uncles, magnificent persons of title, were prominent in Holland to-day, their names associated with that of royalty, and their gracious friendship extended to the American branch of the family whenever Hendrick chose to claim it. Old maps of New York bore the boundary lines of the Von Behrens farm; early histories of the city mingled the names of Melrose and Von Behrens among those of the men who had served the public need. Wherever there was needed that tone that only names of prominence and wealth can bestow Annie's name was solicited. Wherever it appeared it gave the instant stamp of dignity and integrity. She had seen this goal dimly in the distance, when she stepped from her rather spoiled and wilful girlhood into this splendid wifehood, but even Annie was astonished at the rapidity with which it had come about. Mama, of course, had known all the right people, even if she had dropped all social ties after Papa's death. And Hendrick's name was an open sesame. But even so it was surprising, and it was gratifying.

In appearance Annie had no problem. If she was not a beauty she was near enough to being one. She was smart enough, and blonde enough, and splendidly dressed enough to be instantly identifiable, and that was all she desired. Financially, Annie had no problem. Her own inheritance and her husband's great wealth silenced all question there. The Murison pearls and the famous diamond tiara that her father had given her mother years ago had come to Annie, but they were eclipsed by the Von Behrens family jewels, and these were all hers, with the laces, and the ivories, and the brocades. Life could give nothing more to Annie, but not many women would have made so much of what Annie had. There was, far down and out of sight, a little streak of the adventuress in her, and she never stopped halfway.

A young wife, Annie had dutifully considered her nursery.

"Hendrick's is the elder line, of course, although it is the colonial one," Annie had said, superintending a princely layette. The child was a son, his father's image, and nobody who knew Annie was in the least surprised that fortune had fallen in with her plans. It was the magnificent Annie who was quoted as telling Madame Modiste to give her a fitter who would not talk; it was Annie who decided what should be done in recognizing the principals of the Jacqmain divorce, and that old Floyd Densmore's actress-wife should not be accepted. Annie's neat and quiet answer to a certain social acquaintance who remarked, in Annie's little gallery, "I have seen the original of that picture, in one of the European galleries," was still quoted by Annie's friends. "This is the original!" Annie had said quite simply and truthfully.

Leslie admired her aunt more than any one else in the world. Grandma was old-fashioned, and Aunt Alice insignificant, in Leslie's eyes, but stunning, arrogant, fearless Aunt Annie was the model upon which she would have based herself if she had known how. Annie's quick positiveness with her servants, her cool friendliness with big men, and clever men, her calm assurance as to which hats she liked, and which hats she didn't, her utter belief in everything that was of Melrose or von Behrens, and her calm contempt for everything that was not, were masterly in Leslie's eyes.

Annie might have been a strong royalist had she been born a few generations earlier. But in Annie's day the ideal of social service had been laid down by fashion, and she was consequently a tremendously independent and energetic person, with small time for languishing airs. She headed committees and boards, knew hundreds of working girls by name, kept a secretary and a stenographer, and mentioned topics at big dinners that would not have shocked either old Goodwife Melrose of Boston, or Vrouw von Behrens of Nieu Amsterdam, for neither had the faintest idea that such things, or their names, existed.

Withal, Annie was attractive, even her little affectations were impressive, and as she went about from luncheons to meetings, swept up to her model nursery to revel in her model boys, tossed aside regal furs and tore off princely rings the better to play with them, wrapped her beautiful figure in satins and jewels to descend to formal dinners, she was almost as much admired and envied and copied as she might fondly have hoped to be. She managed her life on modern lines of efficiency, planned ahead what she wished, tutored herself not to think of anything undesirable as being even in the range of possibility, trod lightly upon the sensitive souls of others, and asked no quarter herself, aimed high, and enjoyed her life and its countless successes to the full.

Of course there had been setbacks. Her brother Theodore, his most unfortunate marriage to a servant, his intemperance, the general scandal of his mother's violent detestation of his wife, all this was most unpleasant. But Louison, the wife, upon sufficient pressure, had brought her child to the Melroses, and had doubtfully disappeared, and Theodore had returned from his wanderings to live, silent and unobtrusive, in his mother's home, for several years, and to die with his daughter beside him, and be duly laid in the Melrose plot at Woodlawn. And Leslie—Leslie had repaid them all, for all of it.

Alice was another disappointment, or had been one, to Annie. For Alice, after having achieved a most unexpectedly satisfactory marriage, and having set up her household gods in the very shadow of her sister's brilliant example, as it were, had met with that most unfortunate accident. For a few years Annie had been utterly exasperated whenever she thought of it. For Christopher was really an extraordinary husband for Alice to hold, even in normal circumstances. He was so outrageously, frightfully, irresistibly popular with women everywhere, his wife must needs keep a very sharp, albeit loving, eye upon him. A sickly wife—a wife who was a burden and a reproach, that would be fatal to them all!

But Alice had showed unsuspected courage and pride in this hard trial. She had made herself beautiful, well-informed, tactful; she had made herself a magnet to her husband's friends, and his home the centre of a real social group. Annie respected her for it, and helped her by flashing into her rooms not less often than every alternate day, with gossip, with books, with hints that showed Alice just where her course in this or that matter must lie.

So Alice had come to be an actual asset, and now to her Aunt Annie's tremendous satisfaction, Leslie promised to add one more feather to the family cap by announcing her engagement to Acton Liggett. Annie smiled to herself whenever she thought of it. When this was consummated she would have nothing left but the selection of suitable wives for Hendrick Junior, now aged ten, and Piet, who was four years younger.

Two or three days after the ending of the big snow-storm, and the beginning of that domestic storm that was destined strangely to change some of the lives nearest her, Annie went in to have luncheon with her sister. It was a brilliant sunshiny winter day, with crossings swimming in melting snow and roofs steaming brightly into the clear air.

Annie went straight upstairs to Alice's room, with the usual apology for lateness. She kissed Alice lightly on the forehead, and while Freda was coming and going with their meal, they discussed the little boys, books, politics, and the difficulties of the city in the snow.

But when they were alone Annie asked immediately:

"What on earth is the matter with Mama, Alice?"

"You mean about——? Did she tell you?"

"No; she didn't have to. Leslie ran in yesterday afternoon, and told me that Mama has been in bed since Saturday! I telephoned Sunday morning, but Hendrick and I were taking the boys up to his uncle's house, in Westchester, and—as she didn't say one word about being ill—I didn't see her that day, nor yesterday, as it happened, for we didn't come down until noon. When Leslie came in, there were other people there for tea, and I didn't have a chance to speak to her alone. But I went over to Mama this morning, and she seems all broken up!"

"What did she tell you?" Alice asked, anxiously.

"Oh, my dear, you know Mama! She wept, and patted my hand, and said that it was sad to be the last of your own generation, and she hoped you and I would always have each other, and that she had always loved us, and tried to do her best for us——"

Alice laughed.

"Poor Mama! She gets so worked up!" she said.

"But what do you make of it?" demanded Annie. "She talked of this Kate Sheridan—I remember her perfectly, she came to Paris when I was so ill, years ago. Poor Mama cried, and said that she wished to do something for Kate. Now you know, Alice," Annie went on reasonably, "nobody is tying Mama's hands! If she wants to educate this young girl—this Norma person—to please Kate, or all her children for that matter, she doesn't have to go into hysterics, and send for Judge Lee. She said she didn't feel at all well, and she wanted to secure to Kate some money in her will I told her it was ridiculous—she never looked better in her life! I wish she could get over to see you, Alice; you always soothe her so. What on earth does Chris make of it?"

"Well, I'll tell you what we've done," Alice smiled. "Chris went to see her Sunday, and they had a long talk. He tells me that she was just as vague and unsatisfactory as ever, but calmer, and she finally admitted that all she really wanted to do was to befriend this niece of Kate Sheridan. Of course Chris and I think Mama has one of her funny notions about it, but if the child's mother had befriended Mama, for example, a thousand years ago, or if Mama had borrowed five dollars from Kate, and forgotten to return it, you know that would be enough to account for all this excitement."

"Yes, I know!" Annie admitted, with her favourite look of intolerant, yet indulgent, scorn.

"Well, it seems the girl is in Biretta's Bookshop, and Chris has often bought books of her. So to quiet Mama he promised that he would bring her out here to have tea with me some day soon. Mama was delighted, and I think she hopes that a friendship will come of it." Alice threw herself back into the pillows, and drew a great breath as if she were weary. "I only want to please Mama!" she finished.

"You're an angel," Annie said, absently. "I suppose I could get the truth out of Mama in five seconds," she mused. "It looks to me rather like blackmail!"

"No; she said not!" Alice contradicted, quickly.

"Well, it's all so silly," the elder sister said, impatiently. "And coming just now——" she added, significantly.

"Yes. I know!" Alice agreed, with a comprehending look. And in lowered tones they began to talk of Leslie's possible engagement.