"Mother, dear," interrupted Margaret, "they didn't come to hear Berk eulogized, but to see your pretty room. Come, Linda, let us leave them. Miss Ri is almost as bad as she is when it comes to Berk." She put her arm around Linda and drew her away, whispering, "Mother thinks I am jealous, but I am not a bit; I only don't want her to get the notion that she must leave me and go back to Sandbridge. After all Berk has done for us, I think he ought to have his chance to get ahead, and the very least I can do is to try to make mother happy here with me. Herbert agrees with me. I wish Berk had a home of his own, and then mother would be satisfied."
The two younger women went off to view other parts of the house, while their elders talked of those things nearest their hearts. They were old friends and had much in common. Margaret was a sweet womanly person, not a beauty, but fresh and fair and good to look upon, with the same honest grey eyes as her brother's, and the same sturdy frankness of manner. Linda thought her a trifle expansive, till she realized that herself was anything but a stranger, in spite of the fact that she had not met these two since she was a little girl.
"I am glad I wasn't brought up within hail of the monument," said Margaret as she exhibited her spick and span kitchen. "I should hate to be deprived of the privileges of my own kitchen, and I shouldn't like to believe I must live on certain streets or be a Pariah. There is too much of that feeling in this blessed old city, and I must say our Cavalier ancestors did give us pleasure-loving natures as an inheritance. Half the girls I know are pretty and sweet and amiable, but they never read anything but trash, think of nothing but wearing pretty clothes and of having a good time. However, I think they do make good wives and mothers when it comes to settling down. Someone said to me the other day, that Southern girls married only for love and that poverty came in at the door to mock them for being so silly as to think any marriage was better than none; that they didn't mind love flying out of the window half so much as they did going to their graves unmarried. There may be some truth in that, but I think they are generally pretty contented and are satisfied to take life as it comes."