to the house extended an alley of trees, with white flowering
bushes from trunk to trunk like a hedge. At one end of the alley
was a pretty, arched veranda of the house, with steps descending;
at the other end, a graceful fountain in a circle, round which
extended a stone bench. Here Margaret was in the habit of walking
every good day, and even in rainy weather, immediately after
lunch; and here, on the day after the Burke dance, at the usual
time, she was walking, as usual--up and down, up and down, a slow
even stride, her arms folded upon her chest, the muscles of her
mouth moving as she chewed a wooden tooth-pick toward a pulp. As
she walked, her eyes held steady like a soldier's, as if upon the
small of the back of an invisible walker in front of her. Lucia,
stout, rosy, lazy, sprawling upon the bench, her eyes opening and
closing drowsily, watched her sister like a sleepy, comfortable
cat. The sunbeams, filtering through the leafy arch, coquetted
with Margaret's raven hair, and alternately brightened and
shadowed her features. There was little of feminine softness in
those unguarded features, much of intense and apparently far from
agreeable thought. It was one of her bad days, mentally as well as
physically--probably mentally because physically. She had not
slept more than two hours at most, and her eyes and skin showed
it.

"However do you stand it, Rita!" said Lucia, as Margaret
approached the fountain for the thirty-seventh time. "It's so dull
and tiring, to walk that way."

"I've got to keep my figure," replied Margaret, dropping her hands
to her slender hips, and lifting her shoulders in a movement that
drew down her corsets and showed the fine length of her waist.