"I have been recognizing it for some time. I have felt that He was jealous of my happiness. You know it says: 'For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God.' He admits it Himself. So He took vengeance on me through His power and killed my parents just to show me that He could! But if He thinks that I am going to kneel down and thank Him for murder, and love Him for ruining my life--"
A steel blue light seemed to blaze from the girl's eyes as she thus raised her tiny hand and shook it at her Creator.
Cousin Lois burst into tears. Carolina viewed her without sympathy.
"I am so little," she said, suddenly. "It is a brave thing for God to pit His great strength against mine, isn't it? Listen to me, Cousin Lois, I am done with religion from now on. I will never say another prayer as long as I live. The worst has happened to me which could happen. Nothing more counts."
It was while she was in this terrible state of mind that Mrs. Winchester took charge of her.
Sherman and his wife came over for the funeral of their father, and before they could so arrange their affairs as to be able to leave for home, they were called upon to bury, instead of try to console, their mother.
Neither Carolina nor Mrs. Winchester liked Adelaide, Sherman's wife. She was selfish and ignorant, but, with true loyalty to their own, they never expressed themselves on the subject, even to each other. After the period of mourning was over, they accepted her invitation to visit her, and spent a month in New Work. Then, with no explanation whatever, Mrs. Winchester and Carolina went abroad and travelled--travelled now furiously, now in a desultory way; now stopping for one month or six; now hurrying away from a spot as if plague-stricken--all at Carolina's whim.
It was a strange life for an ardent young American to lead, but Noel St. Quentin and Kate Howard, who knew Carolina best, shook their heads, and fancied that the two travellers found in Mrs. Sherman Lee their incentive to remain away from America so long and so persistently.
Mrs. Winchester and Carolina were an oddly assorted pair, but their very dissimilarity made them congenial.
Mrs. Winchester was a woman who merited the attention she always received.