promised, but had been suddenly attacked with a very severe cold
which had obliged her to sail for Europe a week earlier than she had
planned. Margaret had been quite ill, but Doctor Sturtevant gave her
pain pellets with the result that late in the afternoon she sat on
her verandah in a fluffy white tea gown, and then it was that little
Annie Eustace came across the street, and sat with her. Annie was not
little. Although slender, she was, in fact, quite tall and wide
shouldered and there was something about her which seemed to justify
the use of the diminutive adjective. Possibly it was her face, which
was really small and very pretty, with perfect cameo-like features
and an odd, deprecating, almost painfully humble expression. It was
the face of a creature entirely capable of asking an enemy's pardon
for an injury inflicted upon herself. In reality, Annie Eustace had
very much that attitude of soul. She always considered the wrong as
her natural place, and, in fact, would not have been comfortable
elsewhere, although she suffered there. And yet, little Annie Eustace
was a gifted creature. There was probably not a person in Fairbridge
who had been so well endowed by nature, but her environment and
up-bringing had been unfortunate. If Annie's mother had lived, the
daughter might have had more spirit, but she had died when Annie was
a baby, and the child had been given over to the tyranny of two
aunts, and a grandmother. As for her father, he had never married
again, but he had never paid much attention to her. He had been a
reserved, silent man, himself under the sway of his mother and
sisters. Charles Eustace had had an obsession to the effect that the
skies of his own individual sphere would fall to his and his child's
destruction, if his female relatives deserted him, and that they had
threatened to do, upon the slightest sign of revolt. Sometimes
Annie's father had regarded her wistfully and wondered within himself
if it were quite right for a child to be so entirely governed, but