And then in a few weeks winter had come down from over the hills across

the fields and captured the city streets with a blare of northern winds,

which had been met and tempered by the mellow autumn breezes that had

been slow to retreat and abandon the gold and crimson banners still

fluttering on the trees. The snap and crackle of the Thanksgiving frost

had melted into a long lazy silence of a few more Indian summer days so

that, with lungs filled with the intoxicating draught of this late wine

of October, everybody had ridden, driven, hunted, golfed and lived

afield.

Then had come a second sweep of the northern winds and the city had

wakened out of its haze of desertion, turned up its lights, built up its

fires and put on the trappings of revelry and toil.

The major's logs were piled the higher and crackled the louder, and his

welcome was even more genial to the chosen spirits which gathered around

his library table. He and Mrs. Buchanan had succeeded in prolonging the

visit of Caroline Darrah Brown into weeks and were now holding her into

the winter months with loving insistence.

The open-armed hospitality with which their very delightful little world

had welcomed her had been positively entrancing to the girl and she had

entered into its gaieties with the joyous zest of the child that she was.

Her own social experiences had been up to this time very limited, for

she had come straight from the convent in France into the household of

her semi-invalided father. He had had very few friends and in a vaguely

uncomfortable way she had been made to realize that her millions made her

position inaccessible; but by these delightful people to whom social

position was a birthright, and wealth regarded only as a purchasing power

for the necessities and gaieties of life, she had been adopted with much

enthusiasm. Her delight in the round of entertainments in her honor and

the innocent and slightly bewildered adventures she brought the major for

consultation kept him in a constant state of interested amusement. Such

advice as he offered went far in preserving her unsophistication.

And so the late November days found him enjoying life with a decidedly

added zest in things, though his Immortals claimed him the moment he was

left to his own resources and at times he even became entirely oblivious

to the eddies in the lives around him. One cold afternoon he sat in his

chair, buried eyes-deep in one of his old books, while across from him

sat Phoebe and Andrew Sevier, bending together over a large map spread

out before them. There were stacks of blueprints at their elbows and

their conference had evidently been an interesting one.

"It's all wonderful, Andrew," Phoebe was saying, "and I'm proud indeed

that they have accepted your solution of such an important construction

problem; but why must you go back? Aren't the commissions offered you

here, the plays and the demand for your writing enough? Why not stay at

home for a year or two at least?"




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