"
In reality she was a tender-hearted and anxious mother, daughter, and
sister, and an impeccable wife, if a somewhat monotonous one. At all events
her husband never found fault with her in public or private. He had his
reasons. To the friends of her youth and to all members of her own old
set, she was intensely loyal; and although she had a cold contempt for the
institution of divorce, if one of that select band strayed into it, no
matter at which end, her loyalty rose triumphant above her social code, and
she was not afraid to express it publicly.
Toward Alexina she felt less a sister than a second mother, and gave her
freely of her abundant maternal reservoir. That "little sister" had at
times sulked under this proud determination to assist in the bringing-up
of the last of the Ballinger-Groomes, did not discourage her. She might be
soft in her affections but she never swerved from her duty as she saw it.
Alexina was a darling wayward child, who only needed a firm hand to guide
her along that proud secluded old avenue of the city's elect, until she had
ambled safely to established respectability and power.
She had been alarmed at one time at certain symptoms of cleverness she
noticed in the child, and at certain enthusiastic remarks in the letters of
Ballinger Groome, with whose family Alexina had spent her vacations during
her two years in New York at school.
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