and you can readily understand that Major Lucius Quintus Cass’s fashion of wearing large patches on his immaculately-shining boots was not altogether a matter of choice.

[29]

The Major had not long to wait for an audience. As he adjusted his trouser-legs for the third time the sound of soft footfalls on the bare staircase reached him. He glanced apprehensively at the open door, puffed his cheeks out in a mighty exhalation of breath, and arose from his chair just as Miss India Wayne swept into[30] the room. I say swept advisedly, for in spite of the lady’s diminutive stature she was incapable of entering a room in any other manner. Where other women walked, Miss India swept; where others bowed, Miss India curtseyed; where others sat down, Miss India subsided. Hers were the manners and graces of a half-century ago. She was fifty-four years old, but many of those years had passed over her very lightly. Small, perfectly proportioned, with a delicate oval face surmounted by light brown hair, untouched as yet by frost and worn in a braided coronet, attired in a pale lavender gown of many ruffles, she was for all the world like a little Chelsea figurine. She smiled upon the Major a trifle anxiously as she shook hands and bowed graciously to his compliments. Then seating herself erectly on the sofa—for Miss India never lolled—she folded her hands in her lap and looked calmly expectant at the visitor. As the visitor exhibited no present intention of broaching the subject of his visit she took[31] command of the situation, just as she was capable of and accustomed to taking command of most situations.

[30]

[31]

“Holly has begged me not to be hard on you, Major,” she said, in her sweet, still youthful voice. “Pray what have you been doing now? You are not here, I trust, to plead guilty to another case of reprehensible philanthropy?”

“No, Miss Indy, I assure you that you have absolutely reformed me, ma’am.”

Miss India smiled in polite incredulity, tapping one slender hand upon the other as she might in the old days at the White Sulphur have tapped him playfully, yet quite decorously, with her folded fan. The Major chose not to observe the incredulity and continued:

“The fact is, my dear Miss Indy, that I have come on a matter of more—ah—importance. You will recollect—pardon me, pray, if I recall unpleasant memories to mind—you will recollect that when your brother died it was found that he had unfortunately left very little 

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