She did not live with her widowed daughter, as two establishments were more impressive; also, she knew that she was not a livable person—­and thought none the worse of herself for that characteristic of strong personalities.  In the Severence family, at the homestead, there were, besides five servants, but three persons—­the widowed Roxana and her two daughters, Margaret and Lucia—­Lucia so named by Madam Bowker because with her birth ended the Severence hopes of a son to perpetuate in the direct line the family Christian name for its chief heir.  From the side entrance to the house extended an alley of trees, with white flowering bushes from trunk to trunk like a hedge.  At one end of the alley was a pretty, arched veranda of the house, with steps descending; at the other end, a graceful fountain in a circle, round which extended a stone bench.  Here Margaret was in the habit of walking every good day, and even in rainy weather, immediately after lunch; and here, on the day after the Burke dance, at the usual time, she was walking, as usual—­up and down, up and down, a slow even stride, her arms folded upon her chest, the muscles of her mouth moving as she chewed a wooden tooth-pick toward a pulp.  As she walked, her eyes held steady like a soldier’s, as if upon the small of the back of an invisible walker in front of her.  Lucia, stout, rosy, lazy, sprawling upon the bench, her eyes opening and closing drowsily, watched her sister like a sleepy, comfortable cat.  The sunbeams, filtering through the leafy arch, coquetted with Margaret’s raven hair, and alternately brightened and shadowed her features.  There was little of feminine softness in those unguarded features, much of intense and apparently far from agreeable thought.  It was one of her bad days, mentally as well as physically—­probably mentally because physically.  She had not slept more than two hours at most, and her eyes and skin showed it.

“However do you stand it, Rita!” said Lucia, as Margaret approached the fountain for the thirty-seventh time.  “It’s so dull and tiring, to walk that way.”

“I’ve got to keep my figure,” replied Margaret, dropping her hands to her slender hips, and lifting her shoulders in a movement that drew down her corsets and showed the fine length of her waist.

“That’s nonsense,” said Lucia.  “All we Severences get stout as we grow old.  You can’t hope to escape.”

“Grow old!” Margaret’s brow lowered.  Then she smiled satirically.  “Yes, I am growing old.  I don’t dare think how many seasons out, and not married, or even engaged.  If we were rich, I’d be a young girl still.  As it is, I’m getting on.’”

“Don’t you worry about that, Rita,” said Lucia.  “Don’t you let them hurry you into anything desperate.  I’m sure I don’t want to come out.  I hate society and I don’t care about men.  It’s much pleasanter lounging about the house and reading.  No dressing—­no fussing with clothes and people you hate.”