“That side of life is life, mother,” Lily said gravely.  But Grace did not reply to that.  It was characteristic of her to follow her own line of thought.

“I wish you wouldn’t tell your grandfather.  You know he feels strongly about some things.  And he hasn’t forgiven me yet for letting you go.”

Rather diffidently Lily put her hand on her mother’s.  She gave her rare caresses shyly, with averted eyes, and she was always more diffident with her mother than with her father.  Such spontaneous bursts of affection as she sometimes showed had been lavished on Mademoiselle.  It was Mademoiselle she had hugged rapturously on her small feast days, Mademoiselle who never demanded affection, and so received it.

“Poor mother!” she said, “I have made it hard for you, haven’t I?  Is he as bad as ever?”

She had not pinned on the violets, but sat holding them in her hands, now and then taking a luxurious sniff.  She did not seem to expect a reply.  Between Grace and herself it was quite understood that old Anthony Cardew was always as bad as could be.

“There is some sort of trouble at the mill.  Your father is worried.”

And this time it was Lily who did not reply.  She said, inconsequentially: 

“We’re saved, and it’s all over.  But sometimes I wonder if we were worth saving.  It all seems such a mess, doesn’t it?” She glanced out.  They were drawing up before the house, and she looked at her mother whimsically.

“The last of the Cardews returning from the wars!” she said.  “Only she is unfortunately a she, and she hasn’t been any nearer the war than the State of Ohio.”

Her voice was gay enough, but she had a quick vision of the grim old house had she been the son they had wanted to carry on the name, returning from France.

The Cardews had fighting traditions.  They had fought in every war from the Revolution on.  There had been a Cardew in Mexico in ’48, and in that upper suite of rooms to which her grandfather had retired in wrath on his son’s marriage, she remembered her sense of awe as a child on seeing on the wall the sword he had worn in the Civil War.  He was a small man, and the scabbard was badly worn at the end, mute testimony to the long forced marches of his youth.  Her father had gone to Cuba in ’98, and had almost died of typhoid fever there, contracted in the marshes of Florida.

Yes, they had been a fighting family.  And now—­

Her mother was determinedly gay.  There were flowers in the dark old hall, and Grayson, the butler, evidently waiting inside the door, greeted her with the familiarity of the old servant who had slipped her sweets from the pantry after dinner parties in her little-girl years.

“Welcome home, Miss Lily,” he said.

Mademoiselle was lurking on the stairway, in a new lace collar over her old black dress.  Lily recognized in the collar a great occasion, for Mademoiselle was French and thrifty.  Suddenly a wave of warmth and gladness flooded her.  This was home.  Dear, familiar home.  She had come back.  She was the only young thing in the house.  She would bring them gladness and youth.  She would try to make them happy.  Always before she had taken, but now she meant to give.