“Because the women of our family have always been—­different.”

“So have the women of my family,” calmly, “but that’s no reason why we should expect to stand still.  None of the women of my family ever made wedding cake for a living.  But that isn’t any reason why I should starve, is it?”

Aunt Frances shifted the argument.  “But to march—­on the street.”

“That’s their way of expressing themselves.  Men march—­and have marched since the beginning.  Sometimes their marching doesn’t mean anything, and sometimes it does.  And I’m inclined,” said Cousin Patty with an emphatic nod of her head, “to think that this marching means a great deal.”

On and on they came, these women who marched for a Cause, heads up, eyes shining.  There had been something to bear at the other end of the line where the crowd had pressed in upon them, and there had been no adequate police protection, but they were ready for martyrdom, if need be, perhaps, some of them would even welcome it.

But Grace was no fanatic.  She met them afterward, and told of her experience gleefully.

“You should have been with me, Mary,” she said.

Porter rose in his wrath.  “What has bewitched you women?” he demanded.  “Do you all believe in it?”

And now Leila piped, “I don’t want to march.  I don’t want to do the things that men do.  I want to have a nice little house, and cook and sew, and take care of somebody.”

They all laughed.  But Porter surveyed Leila with satisfaction.

“Barry’s a lucky fellow,” he said.

“Oh, Porter,” Mary reproached him, as he helped her down from her high seat on the stand.

“Well, he is.  Leila couldn’t keep her nice little house any better than you, Mary.  But the thing is that she wants to keep it for Barry.  And you—­you want to march on the street—­and laugh—­at love.”

She surveyed him coldly.  “That shows just how much you understand me,” she said, and turned her back on him and accepted an invitation to ride home in the Jeliffes’ car.

On the day of the Inauguration, the same party had seats on the stand opposite the one in front of the White House from which the President reviewed the troops.

And it was upon the President that Cousin Patty riveted her attention.  To be sure her little feet beat time to the music, and she flushed and glowed as the soldiers swept by, and the horses danced, and the people cheered.  But above and beyond all these things was the sight of the man, who in her eyes represented the resurrection of the South—­the man who should sway it back to its old level in the affairs of the nation.

“I couldn’t have dreamed,” she emphasized, as she talked it over that night with Mary, “of anything so satisfying as his smile.  I shall always think of him as smiling out in that quiet way of his at the people.”

Mary had a vision of another Inauguration and of another President who had smiled—­a President who had captured the hearts of his countrymen as perhaps this scholar never would.  It was at the shrine of that strenuous and smiling President that Mary still worshiped.  But they were both great men—­it was for the future to tell which would live longest in the hearts of the people.