“Delighted to meet you, I’m sure,” Mrs. Holland said quietly. “You must be a Southerner, with that tall dark look of distinction—”
Vassar bowed low over her hand.
“I wish I were, madam—if the fact would win your approval—”
“To look like a Southerner is enough to win Mother on sight,” Virginia laughed.
The father extended his hand in a cordial greeting without rising.
“Excuse me, young man, for not getting up,” he said. “I’m lame with the gout. You’re a suffragette?”
Vassar looked at Virginia, smiled and promptly answered.
“I’ll have to confess that I’m not—”
Holland extended his hand again.
“Shake once more! Thank God for the sight of a sane man again. I thought they’d all died. We never see them here any more—”