The one grief of her girlhood had been the waywardness of her only brother.

From childhood she had stood between him and blame, shielding him, helping him, loving him.

She had fought valiantly against his weakness, but her meager strength had been pitted against the accumulated intemperance of generations.
She chafed his thin wrists, which her fingers could span; she tenderly smoothed his face as it lay gray against the pillows; then she caught up his hand and held it to her breast with a quick, motherly gesture.
"Take him soon, God!" she prayed.

"He is too weak to try any more." At midnight she slipped away to her own room and took off the dainty gown she had put on for Sandy's coming.
For long hours she lay in her great canopied bed with wide-open eyes.
The night was a noisy one, for there was a continual passing on the road, and occasional shouts came faintly to her.
With heavy heart she lay listening for some sound from Carter's room.
She was glad he was home.

It was worse to sit up in bed and listen for the wheels to turn in at the gate, to start at every sound on the road, and to wait and wait through the long night.