Page:Maud Howe - Atlanta in the South.djvu/143

 times gone by. Such affairs were growing rare now, and many people felt differently about them; but they had their use, no doubt, and society could not be protected without them. Margaret pleaded illness, and for a fortnight saw no visitors and devoted herself to her Atalanta.

What had she felt for Philip Rondelet, she asked herself a hundred times, ere this great horror of him had settled upon her? And then she tried to put him from her mind, and for a time succeeded. With an instinctive knowledge of what was best for herself,—a knowledge all healthy minded people have in time of trouble,—she kept her thoughts and fingers actively employed. When she was not in the studio she was reading to her father, teaching General Jackson, or making fantastic decorations for the quaint little dwelling which thenceforth never quite lost the impress of her fancy. The Atalanta came on famously. It was a composition of a certain merit and of some originality. She had chosen the moment when Milanion, growing weary in the race and hearing the garments of the Arcadian virgin rustling close behind him, turns and throws down the first golden apple. Atalanta pauses, curious, irresolute, and the group of huntsmen and maidens look on, amused spectators of the struggle