India was not easy to live with these days.

The mantle of spinsterhood was definitely on her shoulders now.

She was twenty-five and looked it, and so there was no longer any

need for her to try to be attractive. Her pale lashless eyes

looked directly and uncompromisingly upon the world and her thin

lips were ever set in haughty tightness. There was an air of

dignity and pride about her now that, oddly enough, became her

better than the determined girlish sweetness of her days at Twelve

Oaks. The position she held was almost that of a widow. Everyone

knew that Stuart Tarleton would have married her had he not been

killed at Gettysburg, and so she was accorded the respect due a

woman who had been wanted if not wed.

The six rooms of the little house on Ivy Street were soon scantily

furnished with the cheapest pine and oak furniture in Frank's store

for, as Ashley was penniless and forced to buy on credit, he

refused anything except the least expensive and bought only the

barest necessities. This embarrassed Frank who was fond of Ashley

and it distressed Scarlett. Both she and Frank would willingly

have given, without any charge, the finest mahogany and carved

rosewood in the store, but the Wilkeses obstinately refused. Their

house was painfully ugly and bare and Scarlett hated to see Ashley

living in the uncarpeted, uncurtained rooms. But he did not seem

to notice his surroundings and Melanie, having her own home for the

first time since her marriage, was so happy she was actually proud

of the place. Scarlett would have suffered agonies of humiliation

at having friends find her without draperies and carpets and

cushions and the proper number of chairs and teacups and spoons.

But Melanie did the honors of her house as though plush curtains

and brocade sofas were hers.

For all her obvious happiness, Melanie was not well. Little Beau

had cost her her health, and the hard work she had done at Tara

since his birth had taken further toll of her strength. She was so

thin that her small bones seemed ready to come through her white

skin. Seen from a distance, romping about the back yard with her

child, she looked like a little girl, for her waist was unbelievably

tiny and she had practically no figure. She had no bust and her

hips were as flat as little Beau's and as she had neither the pride

nor the good sense (so Scarlett thought) to sew ruffles in the bosom

of her basque or pads on the back of her corsets, her thinness was

Very obvious. Like her body, her face was too thin and too pale and

her silky brows, arched and delicate as a butterfly's feelers, stood

out too blackly against her colorless skin. In her small face, her

eyes were too large for beauty, the dark smudges under them making

them appear enormous, but the expression in them had not altered

since the days of her unworried girlhood. War and constant pain and

hard work had been powerless against their sweet tranquillity. They

were the eyes of a happy woman, a woman around whom storms might

blow without ever ruffling the serene core of her being.

How did she keep her eyes that way, thought Scarlett, looking at

her enviously. She knew her own eyes sometimes had the look of a

hungry cat. What was it Rhett had said once about Melanie's eyes--

some foolishness about them being like candles? Oh, yes, like two

good deeds in a naughty world. Yes, they were like candles,

candles shielded from every wind, two soft lights glowing with

happiness at being home again among her friends.

The little house was always full of company. Melanie had been a

favorite even as a child and the town flocked to welcome her home

again. Everyone brought presents for the house, bric-a-brac,

pictures, a silver spoon or two, linen pillow cases, napkins, rag

rugs, small articles which they had saved from Sherman and

treasured but which they now swore were of no earthly use to them.

Old men who had campaigned in Mexico with her father came to see

her, bringing visitors to meet "old Colonel Hamilton's sweet

daughter." Her mother's old friends clustered about her, for

Melanie had a respectful deference to her elders that was very

soothing to dowagers in these wild days when young people seemed to

have forgotten all their manners. Her contemporaries, the young

wives, mothers and widows, loved her because she had suffered what

they had suffered, had not become embittered and always lent them a

sympathetic ear. The young people came, as young people always

come, simply because they had a good time at her home and met there

the friends they wanted to meet.

Around Melanie's tactful and self-effacing person, there rapidly

grew up a clique of young and old who represented what was left of

the best of Atlanta's ante-bellum society, all poor in purse, all

proud in family, die-hards of the stoutest variety. It was as if

Atlanta society, scattered and wrecked by war, depleted by death,

bewildered by change, had found in her an unyielding nucleus about

which it could re-form.

Melanie was young but she had in her all the qualities this

embattled remnant prized, poverty and pride in poverty, uncomplaining

courage, gaiety, hospitality, kindness and, above all, loyalty to

all the old traditions. Melanie refused to change, refused even to

admit that there was any reason to change in a changing world.

Under her roof the old days seemed to come back again and people

took heart and felt even more contemptuous of the tide of wild life

and high living that was sweeping the Carpetbaggers and newly rich

Republicans along.

When they looked into her young face and saw there the inflexible

loyalty to the old days, they could forget, for a moment, the

traitors within their own class who were causing fury, fear and

heartbreak. And there were many such. There were men of good

family, driven to desperation by poverty, who had gone over to the

enemy, become Republicans and accepted positions from the

conquerors, so their families would not be on charity. There were

young ex-soldiers who lacked the courage to face the long years

necessary to build up fortunes. These youngsters, following the

lead of Rhett Butler, went hand in hand with the Carpetbaggers in

money-making schemes of unsavory kinds.

Worst of all the traitors were the daughters of some of Atlanta's

most prominent families. These girls who had come to maturity

since the surrender had only childish memories of the war and

lacked the bitterness that animated their elders. They had lost no

husbands, no lovers. They had few recollections of past wealth and

splendor--and the Yankee officers were so handsome and finely

dressed and so carefree. And they gave such splendid balls and

drove such fine horses and simply worshiped Southern girls! They

treated them like queens and were so careful not to injure their

touchy pride and, after all--why not associate with them?

They were so much more attractive than the town swains who dressed

so shabbily and were so serious and worked so hard that they had

little time to play. So there had been a number of elopements with

Yankee officers which broke the hearts of Atlanta families. There

were brothers who passed sisters on the streets and did not speak

and mothers and fathers who never mentioned daughters' names.

Remembering these tragedies, a cold dread ran in the veins of those

whose motto was "No surrender"--a dread which the very sight of

Melanie's soft but unyielding face dispelled. She was, as the

dowagers said, such an excellent and wholesome example to the young

girls of the town. And, because she made no parade of her virtues

the young girls did not resent her.

It never occurred to Melanie that she was becoming the leader of a

new society. She only thought the people were nice to come to see

her and to want her in their little sewing circles, cotillion clubs

and musical societies. Atlanta had always been musical and loved

good music, despite the sneering comments of sister cities of the

South concerning the town's lack of culture, and there was now an

enthusiastic resurrection of interest that grew stronger as the

times grew harder and more tense. It was easier to forget the

impudent black faces in the streets and the blue uniforms of the

garrison while they were listening to music.

Melanie was a little embarrassed to find herself at the head of the

newly formed Saturday Night Musical Circle. She could not account

for her elevation to this position except by the fact that she

could accompany anyone on the piano, even the Misses McLure who

were tone deaf but who would sing duets.

The truth of the matter was that Melanie had diplomatically managed

to amalgamate the Lady Harpists, the Gentlemen's Glee Club and the

Young Ladies Mandolin and Guitar Society with the Saturday Night

Musical Circle, so that now Atlanta had music worth listening to.

In fact, the Circle's rendition of The Bohemian Girl was said by

many to be far superior to professional performances heard in New

York and New Orleans. It was after she had maneuvered the Lady

Harpists into the fold that Mrs. Merriwether said to Mrs. Meade and

Mrs. Whiting that they must have Melanie at the head of the Circle.

If she could get on with the Harpists, she could get on with

anyone, Mrs. Merriwether declared. That lady herself played the

organ for the choir at the Methodist Church and, as an organist,

had scant respect for harps or harpists.

Melanie had also been made secretary for both the Association for

the Beautification of the Graves of Our Glorious Dead and the

Sewing Circle for the Widows and Orphans of the Confederacy. This

new honor came to her after an exciting joint meeting of those

societies which threatened to end in violence and the severance of

lifelong ties of friendship. The question had arisen at the

meeting as to whether or not weeds should be removed from the

graves of the Union soldiers near those of Confederate soldiers.

The appearance of the scraggly Yankee mounds defeated all the

efforts of the ladies to beautify those of their own dead.