Princess rang the bell quite meekly.  The pet sobriquet was in as familiar use among them as her real name, but her touch on the bell did not suggest the imperiousness of royalty.  Aunt Rachel was an old family servant, faithful, fat, and important, and Aunt Rachel hated to be hurried.  She said “it pestered her, an’ made her spile the vittles.”  She answered promptly this time, however, entering with the great waiter of hot and tasty dishes before the bell had ceased its faint tintinnabulation.  Berkeley, a tall fair man, whose right sleeve was fastened against his breast, entered also.

“I saw Jim Byrd this morning,” he remarked as he seated himself, after the customary greeting to his mother and sister.  “He called here on his way over to Roy Garnett’s, where he was going to bid good-by.  I asked him in to breakfast, but he couldn’t stop; said he had promised Grace to take breakfast with them.  He has to make a farewell tour, or old friends’ feelings will be hurt.  It’s rather awful, and hard on Jim, but he couldn’t bear the thought of the neighbors feeling slighted.  I suggested a barbecue and a stump speech and bow, but the idea didn’t seem to appeal to Jim.  Poor old fellow!”

“Couldn’t he contrive to hold Shirley, Berke?” questioned Mrs. Mason, as she passed his cup.  “He had retained possession so long, there must have been some way to hold it altogether.”

“No; the thing was impossible,” replied Berkeley; “the plantation was mortgaged to the hub before Jim was born.  The Byrds have been extravagant for generations, and a crash was inevitable.  Old Mr. Byrd could barely meet the interest, even before the loss of Cousin Mary’s money.  During the last years of his life some of it was added to the principal, which made it harder work for Jim.  But for Jim’s management, and the fact that the creditors all stood like a row of blocks in which the fall of one would inevitably touch off the whole line, things would have gone to smash long ago.  Each man was afraid to move in the matter, lest by so doing he should invite his own creditors to come down on him.  Until lately they haven’t bothered Jim much outside of wringing all the interest out of him they could get.  While his sisters were single, he was obliged to keep a home together for them, you know.  Nina’s marriage last spring removed that responsibility, and I reckon it’s a relief to Jim to relinquish the struggle.”

“What a pity old Mr. Byrd persuaded Mary to sell out her bonds, and invest the money in tobacco during the war!” observed Mrs. Mason, regretfully.  “It would have been something for the children if she had kept the bonds.  It was too bad that those great warehouses, full of tobacco, belonging to the Byrds and Masons were burned in Richmond at the evacuation.  Charlie Mason persuaded Mr. Byrd into that speculation, and although Charlie is my own cousin and Mary’s brother, I must admit that he did wrong.  Your father always disapproved of the sale of those bonds.”