To this strong haven of refuge had come Mary Ellen Beauchamp from the far-off Western plains, after the death of her other relatives in that venture so ill-starred.  The white-haired old widow who now represented the head of the Clayton family—­her kin somewhat removed, but none the less her “cousins,” after the comprehensive Southern fashion—­had taken Mary Ellen to her bosom, upbraiding her for ever dreaming of going into the barbarian West, and listening but little to the plea of the girl that poverty had driven her to the company of those who, like herself, were poor.  Now, such had been the turn of the wheel, the girl was nearly as rich in money as her older relative, and able to assume what little of social position there remained in her ambition.

Mary Ellen was now well past twenty-seven, a tall, matured, and somewhat sad-faced woman, upon her brow written something of the sorrows and uncertainties of the homeless woman, as well as the record of a growing self-reliance.  If Mary Ellen were happy or not none might say, yet surely she was dutiful and kind; and gradually, with something of the leadership she had learned in her recent life, she slipped into practical domestic command of this quiet but punctilious menage.  By reason of an equal executive fitness Aunt Lucy rose in the kitchen also into full command.  The Widow Clayton found her cousin Mary Ellen a stay and comfort, useful and practical to a degree unknown in the education of the Southern young lady of the time.

Of her life in the West Mary Ellen spoke but little, though never with harshness, and at times almost with wistfulness.  Her history had seemed too full of change to be reality.  For the future she made no plans.  It seemed to her to be her fate ever to be an alien, a looker-on.  The roses drooped across her lattice, and the blue grass stood cool and soft and deep beyond her window, and the kind air carried the croon of the wooing mocking bird; yet there persisted in her brain the picture of a wide, gray land, with the sound of an urgent wind singing in the short, tufted grasses, and the breath of a summons ever on the air.  Out there upon the Plains it had been ever morning.  Here life seemed ever sinking toward its evening-tide.

This old family and the family house were accepted unquestioningly by the quiet Southern community now, as they had ever been, as a part of the aristocracy of the land, and as appurtenances there-to.  The way of life had little change.  The same grooms led out the horses from the stables, the same slow figures cut the grass upon the lawn.  Yet no longer were the doors thrown open upon a sea of light and colour.  The horses were groomed and broken, but they brought no great carriage of state sweeping up the drive between the lion-headed pillars of the gateway.  When Mrs. Clayton feebly sought to propose brighter ways of life for the young woman, the latter told her gently that for her, too, life was planned and done, the struggle over, and that she asked only that she might rest, and not take up again any questions for readjustment.