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body. He followed the contentions of such men as Sumner, Garrison, Phillips, and Beecher, with
considerable interest; but at no time could he see that the problem was a vital one for him. He
did not care to be a soldier or an officer of soldiers; he had no gift for polemics; his mind was not
of the disputatious order--not even in the realm of finance. He was concerned only to see what
was of vast advantage to him, and to devote all his attention to that. This fratricidal war in the
nation could not help him. It really delayed, he thought, the true commercial and financial
adjustment of the country, and he hoped that it would soon end. He was not of those who
complained bitterly of the excessive war taxes, though he knew them to be trying to many.
Some of the stories of death and disaster moved him greatly; but, alas, they were among the
unaccountable fortunes of life, and could not be remedied by him. So he had gone his way day
by day, watching the coming in and the departing of troops, seeing the bands of dirty,
disheveled, gaunt, sickly men returning from the fields and hospitals; and all he could do was to
feel sorry. This war was not for him. He had taken no part in it, and he felt sure that he could
only rejoice in its conclusion--not as a patriot, but as a financier. It was wasteful, pathetic,
unfortunate.
The months proceeded apace. A local election intervened and there was a new city treasurer, a
new assessor of taxes, and a new mayor; but Edward Malia Butler continued to have apparently
the same influence as before. The Butlers and the Cowperwoods had become quite friendly.
Mrs. Butler rather liked Lillian, though they were of different religious beliefs; and they went
driving or shopping together, the younger woman a little critical and ashamed of the elder
because of her poor grammar, her Irish accent, her plebeian tastes--as though the Wiggins had
not been as plebeian as any. On the other hand the old lady, as she was compelled to admit,
was good-natured and good-hearted. She loved to give, since she had plenty, and sent
presents here and there to Lillian, the children, and others. "Now youse must come over and
take dinner with us"--the Butlers had arrived at the evening-dinner period--or "Youse must come
drive with me to-morrow."
"Aileen, God bless her, is such a foine girl," or "Norah, the darlin', is sick the day."
But Aileen, her airs, her aggressive disposition, her love of attention, her vanity, irritated and at
times disgusted Mrs. Cowperwood. She was eighteen now, with a figure which was subtly
provocative. Her manner was boyish, hoydenish at times, and although convent-trained, she
was inclined to balk at restraint in any form. But there was a softness lurking in her blue eyes
that was most sympathetic and human.
St. Timothy's and the convent school in Germantown had been the choice of her parents for her
education--what they called a good Catholic education. She had learned a great deal about the
theory and forms of the Catholic ritual, but she could not understand them. The church, with its
tall, dimly radiant windows, its high, white altar, its figure of St. Joseph on one side and the
Virgin Mary on the other, clothed in golden-starred robes of blue, wearing haloes and carrying
scepters, had impressed her greatly. The church as a whole--any Catholic church--was beautiful
to look at-- soothing. The altar, during high mass, lit with a half-hundred or more candles, and
dignified and made impressive by the rich, lacy vestments of the priests and the acolytes, the
impressive needlework and gorgeous colorings of the amice, chasuble, cope, stole, and
maniple, took her fancy and held her eye. Let us say there was always lurking in her a sense of
grandeur coupled with a love of color and a love of love. From the first she was somewhat sex-
conscious. She had no desire for accuracy, no desire for precise information. Innate
sensuousness rarely has. It basks in sunshine, bathes in color, dwells in a sense of the
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