The Wild Fawn by Mary Imlay Taylor

LEIGH CARTER had attained the dignity of his eighteenth birthday a few days before the arrival of his brother's bride. He had done fairly well at the high school, and was preparing now, during vacation, for a preliminary examination for the university which had educated the male Carters for generations.

Leigh had some mental gifts and a taste for poetry, which seemed to indicate a literary career, and his fond mother regarded him as a budding genius. There was a wide gap in age between the two younger and the two older Carters, occasioned by the death of three intervening children, and Mrs. Carter's affections had always centered on her baby boy, as she still called Leigh -- to his great indignation. Her pride had been in William, her sympathy for poor Dan, but her doting fondness was for Leigh.