The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor

Lloyd Sherman at seventeen was a combination of all the characters her / many nicknames implied. The same imperious little ways and hasty / outbursts of temper that had won her the title of Little Colonel showed / themselves at times. But she was growing so much like the gentle maiden / of the portrait that the name "Amanthis" trembled on the old Colonel's / lips very often when he looked at her. The Tusitala ring on her finger / showed that she still kept in mind the Road of the Loving Heart, which / she was trying to leave behind her in every one's memory, and the string / of tiny Roman pearls she sometimes clasped around her throat bore silent / witness to her effort to live up to the story of Ederyn, and keep tryst / with all that was expected of her.

When a long line of blue-blooded ancestors has handed down a heritage of / proud traditions and family standards, it is no easy matter to be all / that is expected of an only child. But Lloyd was meeting all / expectations, responding to the influence of beauty and culture with / which she had always been surrounded, as unconsciously as a bud unfolds / to the sunshine. Her ambition "to make undying music in the world," to / follow in the footsteps of her beautiful grandmother Amanthis, was in / itself a reaching-up to one of the family ideals.