French forts, drew far away; never before had he found Myrtle Forge so
desirable. He was, he thought, growing definitely older. He was
twenty-five.

A light knock fell on his door, and he answered comfortably, thinking
that it was his mother. But it was Caroline, his oldest sister. "How you
have slept," she observed, closing the door at her back; "it was hardly
nine when you came in, and here it is five. Mother heard you." Caroline
Penny was a warm, unbeautiful girl with a fine, slender body, two years
younger than himself. Her colouring was far lighter than Howat's; she
had sympathetic hazel eyes, an inviting mouth, an illusive depression in
one cheek that alone saved her from positive ugliness, and tobacco brown
hair worn low with a long, turned strand. She had on a pewter-coloured,
informal wrap over a black silk petticoat, lacking hoops, with a cut
border of violet and silver brocade; and above low, green kid stays with
coral tulip blossoms worked on the dark velvet of foliage were glimpses
of webby linen and frank, young flesh.

She came to the edge of the bed, where she sat with a yellow morocco
slipper swinging from a silk clocked, narrow foot. He liked Caroline,
Howat lazily thought. Although she did not in the least resemble their
mother in appearance--she could not pretend to such distinction of
being--Caroline unmistakably possessed something of the other's
personality, far more than did Myrtle. She said generally, patently only
delaying for the moment communications of much greater interest than
himself, "Where were you last night?" He told her, and she plunged at
once into a rich store of information.

"Did you know that Mr. and Mrs. Winscombe are staying on? It's so,
because of the fever in the city. David and his father stopped all