"No one has really settled as to who Job was," said the youth with calm superiority.
"Well, the knowledge is all there," returned Annis. "Some day, thousands of years hence, someone may express doubts about Columbus and John Smith and Washington, but the country will be here."
Girls were not made for argument, and if you went on forever they would have the last word, no matter how inane it might be. Charles thought Annis much changed for the worse, just like other girls, because she no longer hung on his words and paid him a loving deference. Her worship had been something new to the boy, for Varina claimed by force, and was the superior power herself. The others simply petted him. Annis understood and appreciated. But he had outgrown the boyish fervor, and she no longer paid homage to him.
He was too young to know that it was simply lack of admiration, and vanity crying out with the wound.
Annis had quaffed the sweets of admiration herself. A nature less fine and wholesome would have been spoiled by the warm and fond approval of her brothers-in-law, and the preference of others she had met. She was coming to have the dawning self-appropriation of womanhood, and no longer offered her choicest gifts, but felt they must be sought with a certain humility. And there was no humility at all about Charles at that period. They were both too near parallel lines.
Yet it was a busy, happy, engrossing time. Varina took possession of Louis, who was developing much of his father's easy-going nature, but with the ambitions of the new generation and the times; then, his associations had been cast on different lines. It was whispered, too, that a friend of Patty's with whom Annis was a great favorite had cast a glamour over the young lawyer.
Annis solaced herself with the thought that Varina would marry and go away, but all the others would be left, and her dearly beloved Washington. Roger said she would do for an archæologist, she was so fond of exploring ruins. She insisted that Marian and Captain Ralston should make pilgrimages to the little old hut where he had so nearly died, and they found many marks of the battle, that if it had been an ignominious rout, still had in it the better part of valor, when the enemy were overwhelming. Baltimore was glorying in her splendid defense of Fort McHenry, and a girl who could not sing "The Star-spangled Banner" was considered half a Tory.
Though Annis was so young, hardly fifteen, she and Varina had so many invitations to Washington that Mr. Mason suggested they should engage board by the month. Varina was making the best of her time, for she had "coaxed off" six months of the engagement, and her lover was to come soon after Christmas. In the spring Louis was to set up a home of his own.
Varina's marriage was in the old home, which was crowded with relatives and guests. Her mother's wedding gown did duty again, and then it went to Jaqueline as an heirloom. Mr. Woodford was tall and really fine-looking, with a good deal of character in his face, and of good family, ten years older than Varina, which brought him to the prime of young manhood.
"Really!" exclaimed Patty, "I do not see what remarkable grace or virtue in Varina captured so substantial and devoted a lover—though she has improved in temper, and is better-looking; but she will never have the Verney beauty—hardly the Mason. Well, one can't explain half the queer happenings in this world."