Judge Lawrence died when Alice was fifteen years of age, leaving both
his widow and his daughter handsomely provided for.
The Baroness not only possessed the Beryngford homestead, but a house
in Washington as well; and both of these were occupied by tenants,
for Mabel insisted upon having her stepmother dwell under her own
roof. Senator Cheney had purchased a house in New York to gratify
his wife and daughter, and it was here the family resided, when not
in Washington or at the seaside resorts. Both women wished to
forget, and to make others forget, that they had ever lived in
Beryngford. They never visited the place and never referred to it.
They desired to be considered "New Yorkers" and always spoke of
themselves as such.
The Baroness was now hopelessly passee. Yet it was the revealing of
the inner woman, rather than the withering of the exterior, which
betrayed her years. The woman who understands the art of bodily
preservation can, with constant toil and care, retain an appearance
of youth and charm into middle life; but she who would pass that
dreaded meridian, and still remain a goodly sight for the eyes of
men, must possess, in addition to all the secrets of the toilet,
those divine elixirs, unselfishness and love for humanity. Faith in
divine powers, too, and resignation to earthly ills, must do their
part to lend the fading eye lustre and to give a softening glow to
the paling cheek.
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