_Chapter I_


I

"I am very much distressed about it all," murmured Mrs. Baxter.

She was a small, delicate-looking old lady, very true to type indeed,
with the silvery hair of the devout widow crowned with an exquisite
lace cap, in a filmy black dress, with a complexion of precious china,
kind shortsighted blue eyes, and white blue-veined hands busy now upon
needlework. She bore about with her always an atmosphere of piety,
humble, tender, and sincere, but as persistent as the gentle
sandalwood aroma which breathed from her dress. Her theory of the
universe, as the girl who watched her now was beginning to find out,
was impregnable and unapproachable. Events which conflicted with it
were either not events, or they were so exceptional as to be
negligible. If she were hard pressed she emitted a pathetic
peevishness that rendered further argument impossible.

The room in which she sat reflected perfectly her personality. In
spite of the early Victorian date of the furniture, there was in its
arrangement and selection a taste so exquisite as to deprive it of
even a suspicion of Philistinism. Somehow the rosewood table on which
the September morning sun fell with serene beauty did not conflict as
it ought to have done with the Tudor paneling of the room. A tapestry