not fall. She was not lacking in self-control, and she told herself that
of late she had wept too often. She sat very still, her head bowed upon
her listless arm, while the moments passed, bearing with them pictures
seen through unshed tears. She was living over the days of the
Three-Notched Road, and she beheld each shifting scene by the light of a
passion that she believed to be unreasonable, unnatural, secret, and
without hope. Her uncle's voice came to her from the hall below.
"Jacqueline, Jacqueline!" She arose, bathed her eyes, and went
downstairs.

It was the custom of the family to gather after supper upon the great
white pillared porch, and to sit through the twilight. The men smoked
slowly and reflectively, the women sat with folded hands, watching the
last glow upon the hills, and the brightening of the evening star;
dreamily listening to the choir of frogs, the faint tinkle of cowbells,
the bleating of folded lambs, and the continual rustle of the poplar
leaves.

Jacqueline took her seat beside Unity. Colonel Churchill, in his
especial chair, was smoking like a benevolent volcano; at a small table
Major Edward was playing Patience. On the broad porch steps below
Jacqueline and Unity half sat, half lay, the two Carys. The fireflies
were beginning to show, and out of the distance came a plaintive
_Whip-poor-will--Whip-poor-will!_

"I shall have," said Ludwell Cary, "the vines at Greenwood trained like
these. There could be no better way."

"Is the drawing-room finished?" asked Unity.