Marian had been the sedate elder sister. She was not old, but she had grown much older and lost the aspect of girlhood that she had kept her three-and-twenty years. There was much kindly sympathy expressed for her. Mr. Greaves grew more helpless instead of improving, and his mind had never been quite clear.
But no one suggested an interrupted engagement except among the slaves, who recalled that she had put out her candle on Christmas Eve, and the ring in the cake had not come to her, nor a single rose.
"Looks laik she cut out fer 'n ole maid," declared a gray-haired mammy. "En she mought 'a' bin a gret lady, goin' ober to de ole country. But young missy goin' to be happy as de day is long. De house'll never seem de same."
"Grandfather Floyd has begun to break," said Mr. Mason when they had started on their homeward journey. "One can hardly decide whether to be glad or sorry about Marian. Anyway, it is hard on the poor girl."
"And you can't decide whether she is sorry or not. I never saw anyone change so. She has grown curiously close about herself," declared Jaqueline.
The interrupted intimacy between the two families was taken up again. Even Jane and her three children were invited to the Pineries for a hot month in the summer. Grandfather was quite deaf, which made him more irritable, and Marian played piquet with him for hours together. Mrs. Floyd managed the plantation, though she had always taken her share of that.
Patricia came home a slim, pretty, and piquant young woman, refined and finished, and Louis was an attractive young collegian. The house was filled with guests, and there was much merriment, until one day the word came that surprised them all. Grandfather had been found dead in his chair on the porch where he took his usual afternoon nap.
Family funerals were almost as grand occasions as marriages at this period. The great house was filled with guests, and there was no unseemly haste to bury the dead out of their sight. The funeral procession might have been that of a famous man. When they returned the relatives were gathered in the darkened parlor where the candles stood lighted on a table, and Archibald Floyd's will was read in a dry, decorous tone by the little old lawyer who had made wills for half a century.
As was expected, the Pineries and slaves and appurtenances of all kinds went to Brandon, who was the only son. The girls had an equal money portion. The widow was provided with a home; certain rooms were set apart for her, certain slaves were bequeathed to her with the bed and table linen and some of the furnishings that she had brought with her; and Brandon was to pay her a regular income out of the estate, which was to cease at her death. A very fair and just will, it was agreed on every side.
Meanwhile there had been no perceptible change in Mr. Greaves. He did not suffer much; he was fed and cared for like a child. Some days he brightened and talked with encouraging coherence, but it was mostly about his early life, and he now and then mistook his sister for his dead wife. And though Marian had gone over several times, he had not seemed to recall her specially.