Andrew the Glad | Page 7

It has all come home to me to-day and I think you will understand when I tell you about--"
"Major," interrupted Tempie with a broad grin on her black face, "Mr. Dave, he done telephoned fer you ter keep Miss Phoebe till he gits here. He says he'll hold you and me 'sponsible, sir."
A quick flush rose to Phoebe's cheeks and she laughed as she collected her notebook and pinned down her veil all at the same tune with a view to instant flight. She gave neither the major nor Tempie time for remonstrance.
"Good-by!" she called from the hall. "I only came in to tell Mrs. Matilda that I would meet her at the Cantrell tea at five-fifteen and afterward we could make that visit together. The muffins were divine!"
"Tempie," remarked the major as he looked up at her over the devastated table with an imperturbable smile, "I have decided positively that women are just half-breed angels with devil markings all over their dispositions."
And having received which admonition with the deepest respect, Tempie immediately fell into a perfect whirlwind of guest preparations which involved the pompous Jefferson, her husband, and the meek Jane, her daughter. The major issued her numberless, perfectly impossible but solicitous orders and then retired to his library chair with his mind at ease and his books at hand.
And it was in the violet flamed dusk as he sat with his immortal friends ranged around that Mrs. Matilda brought the treasure home to him. She was a very lovely thing, a fragrant flower of a woman with the tender shyness of a child in her manner as she laid her hands in his outheld to her with his courtly old-world grace.
"My dear, my dear," he said as he drew her near to him, "here's a welcome that's been ready for you twenty years, you slip of a girl you, with your mother's eyes. Did you think you could get away from Matilda and me when we've been waiting for you all this time?"
"I may have thought so, but when I saw her I knew I couldn't; didn't want to even," she answered him in a low voice that hinted of close-lying tears.
"Child, Matilda has had a heart trap ready for you ever since you were born, in case she sighted you in the open. It's baited with a silver rattle, doll babies, sugar plums, the ashes of twenty years' roses, the fragrance of every violet she has seen, and lately an aggregation of every eligible masculine heart in this part of the country has been added. She caught you fair--walk in and help yourself; it's all yours!"
CHAPTER II
THE RITUAL
"Well, it's a sensation all right, Major," said David as he stood in front of the major's fire early in the morning after the ceremonies of the presentation of sketches of the statue out at the Temple of Arts. "Mrs. Matilda told me the news and helped me sandwich it into my speech between that time and the open-up talk. People had asked so often who was giving the statue, laid it on so many different people, and wondered over it to such an extent all fall that they had got tired and forgot that they didn't know all about it. When I presented it in the name of Caroline Darrah Brown in memory of her mother and her grandfather, General Darrah, you could have heard a pin drop for a few seconds, then the applause was almost a sob. It was as dramatic a thing as has been handed this town in many a day. Still it was a bit sky-rockety, don't you think--keeping it like that and--"
"David," interrupted the major quickly, "she never intended to tell it. She had done the business part of it through her solicitors. She never wanted us to know. I persuaded her to let it be presented in her name, myself, just before Matilda went out with you. She shrinks--"
"Wait a minute, Major, don't get the two sides of my brain crossed. You persuaded her--she isn't in town is she?--don't tell me she's here herself!" And David ruffled his auburn forelock with a gesture of perplexity.
"Yes," answered the major, "Caroline Darrah Brown is here and is, I hope, going to stay for a time at least. I wanted to tell you about it yesterday but I hadn't seen her and I--"
"And, David dear," interrupted Mrs. Buchanan who had been standing by with shining eyes waiting for an opening to break in on Kildare's astonishment with some of the details of her happiness over her discovery. "I didn't tell you last night for the major didn't want me to, but she is so lovely! She's your inherited friend, for your mother and hers were devoted to each other. I do want you to love