As she sat in the silence, the door opened softly and Miss Chris came in, bearing a lamp in her hand.

“Eugie,” she said, peering into the darkness, “are you there?”

Eugenia lowered the window and came over to the hearth rug, where she stood blinking from the sudden glare of the lamp.  There were some half-extinguished embers amid the ashes in the fireplace, and she threw on fresh wood, watching while it caught and blazed up lightly over the old brass andirons.

Miss Chris set the lamp on the table and came over to the fire.  She carried her key basket in her hand, and the keys jingled as she moved.  Her smooth, florid face had a fine moisture over it that showed like dew on a well-sunned peach.

“You aren’t worrying about Nick Burr, Eugie,” she said with the amiable bluntness which belonged to her.  “I wouldn’t let it worry me if I were you.”

Eugenia turned with a flash of pride.

“No, I am not worrying about him,” she answered.

Miss Chris lifted a vase from the mantel-piece, dusted the spot where it had stood, and replaced it carefully.

“Of course, I know you’ve seen a good deal of him of late,” she went on; “but, as I told Tom, I knew it was nothing more than your being playmates together.  He’s a good boy, and I don’t believe that scandal about him any more than I would about Bernard; but he’s Amos Burr’s son, after all, though he has raised himself a long way above him, and, as poor Aunt Griselda used to say, ’When all’s said and done, a Battle’s a Battle.’”

Eugenia was looking into the fire.

“Yes,” she repeated slowly, “a Battle’s a Battle, after all.”

“That’s right, dear.  I knew you’d say so.  I always declared that you were more of a Battle than all the rest of us put together—­if you do look the image of a Tucker.  Tom was telling me only last week that he’d leave you as free as air and trust the name in your hands sooner than he would in his own—­and he has a great deal of family pride, you know, though he was so wild in his youth.  But I remember my father once saying:  ’A Battle may go a long way down the wrong road, but he’ll always pull up in time to turn.’”

Her beautiful eyes shone in the firelight, and her placid mouth formed a round hole above her dimpled chin, giving her large face an expression almost infantile.  She took up the key basket, which she had placed on the mantel-piece, cast a glance at the pile of logs to see if it had been replenished, felt the cover on the bed, after inquiring if it sufficed, and, with a cheerful “good-night,” passed out, closing the door behind her.