had the skill, the cold calculating brain, the wit, the will; and now,
by a cruel chance and a stupid accident, he had lost out! The end had
come for him, and he in his heyday! There were moments when, watching
him, I had the sensation as of witnessing almost visibly, here in our
calm sunny garden, the Dark Powers fighting openly for a soul.

_"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against
principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of
this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."_




CHAPTER IV

UNDERWINGS


If I have not heretofore spoken of Mary Virginia, it is because all
that winter she and Mrs. Eustis had been away; and in consequence
Appleboro was dull enough. For the Eustises are our wealthiest and
most important family, just as the Eustis house, with its pillared,
Greek-temple-effect front, is by far the handsomest house in town.
When we have important folks to entertain, we look to the Eustises to
save our faces for us by putting them up at their house.

One afternoon, shortly after we had gotten settled in Appleboro, I
came home to find my mother entertaining no less a personage than Mrs.
Eustis; she wasn't calling on the Catholic priest and his mother, you
understand; far from it! She was recognizing Armand De Rancé and Adele