Mrs. Timberlake was staring intently through her spectacles at one of the snow-laden evergreens on the lawn. A covering of powdery white wrapped the drive and the landscape, and, now and then, when the wind rattled the ice-coated branches of the elms, there was a sharp crackling noise as of breaking boughs.
"I reckon he does," she replied after a pause, "though I can't see to save my life what he expects to get out of it."
"Do you think it is ambition with him? It seems to me, since I heard him talk, that he really believes he has a message, that he can serve his country. Until I met him," Caroline added, half humorously, "I had begun to feel that the men of to-day loved their country only for what they could get out of it."
"Well, I expect David is as disinterested as anybody else," observed Mrs. Timberlake drily, "but that seems to me all the more reason why he'd better let things jog along as they are, and not try to upset them. But there isn't any use talking. David sets more store by those ideas of his than he does by any living thing in the world, unless it's Letty. They are his life, and I declare I sometimes think he feels about them as he used to feel about Angelica before he married her—the sort of thing you never expect to see outside of poetry." She had long ago lost her reserve in Caroline's presence, and the effect of what she called "bottling up" for so many years, gave a crispness and roundness to her thoughts which was a refreshing contrast to Angelica's mental vagueness.
"I can understand it," said Caroline, "I mean I can understand a man's wanting to have some part in moulding the thought of his time. Father used to be like that. Only it was Virginia, not America, that he cared for. He wanted to help steer Virginia over the rapids, he used to say. I was brought up in the midst of politics. That's the reason it sounded so natural to me when Mr. Blackburn was talking."
Letty, who had been playing with her dolls on the hearthrug, deserted them abruptly, and ran over to the window.
"Oh, Miss Meade, do you think I am going to be well for Aunt Mary's wedding?"
"Why, of course you are. This is only January, darling, and the wedding won't be till June."
"And is that a very long time?"
"Months and months. The roses will be blooming, and you will have forgotten all about your cold."