To the men she was more reserved.  Few of them ever got beyond a handshake and a smile, and none of them ever reached the borders of intimacy.  Popularity in a country village could never, she knew, be gained by a pretty woman without great discretion.  She explained her foresight to Jane by telling her that there was no man of her world in Warehold but the doctor, and that she wouldn’t think of setting her cap for him as she would be gray-haired before he would have the courage to propose.  Then she kissed Jane in apology, and breaking out into a rippling laugh that Martha heard upstairs, danced out of the room.

Little Ellen, too, had her innings; not only was she prettily dressed, presenting the most joyous of pictures, as with golden curls flying about her shoulders she flitted in and out of the rooms like a sprite, but she was withal so polite in her greetings, dropping to everyone a little French courtesy when she spoke, and all in her quaint, broken dialect, that everybody fell in love with her at sight.  None of the other mothers had such a child, and few of them knew that such children existed.

Jane watched the workings of Lucy’s mind with many misgivings.  She loved her lightheartedness and the frank, open way with which she greeted everybody who crossed their threshold.  She loved, too, to see her beautifully gowned and equipped and to hear the flattering comments of the neighbors on her appearance and many charms; but every now and then her ear caught an insincere note that sent a shiver through her.  She saw that the welcome Lucy gave them was not from her heart, but from her lips; due to her training, no doubt, or perhaps to her unhappiness, for Jane still mourned over the unhappy years of Lucy’s life—­an unhappiness, had she known it, which had really ended with Archie’s safe adoption and Bart’s death.  Another cause of anxiety was Lucy’s restlessness.  Every day she must have some new excitement—­a picnic with the young girls and young men, private theatricals in the town hall, or excursions to Barnegat Beach, where they were building a new summer hotel.  Now and then she would pack her bag and slip off to New York or Philadelphia for days at a time to stay with friends she had met abroad, leaving Ellen with Jane and Martha.  To the older sister she seemed like some wild, untamable bird of brilliant plumage used to long, soaring flights, perching first on one dizzy height and then another, from which she could watch the world below.

The thing, however, which distressed Jane most was Lucy’s attitude towards Archie.  She made every allowance for her first meeting at the station, and knew that necessarily it must be more or less constrained, but she had not expected the almost cold indifference with which she had treated the boy ever since.