Andrew the Glad | Page 7

it's love," said the major as he looked at her
thoughtfully and dropped the banter that had been in his voice since she
had come in. "A boy's? Perhaps, but I think not. You'll see! It's a call, a
call that must be answered some time, child--and a mystery." For a
moment the major sat and looked deep into the gray eyes raised to his
in quick responsiveness to the change in his mood. "Don't trifle with
love, girl, it's God Almighty's dower to a woman. It's hers; though she
pays a bitter price for it. It's a wonder and a worker of wonders. 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