e came? Something urged her to softly
call his name, but, with a moment's thought, she decided against that.
She would go down, meet him, welcome him, see if there were not
something he needed, see him to his room, kiss him again good-night; and
so she took her candle to the lower floor, left it on the dining-room
table, and finally reached the rear door, even as her son came slowly up
the steps. At that instant began at the guard-house the call of
half-past twelve.

CHAPTER XXI

LOVE'S LAST APPEAL

Going, as usual, next day to read an hour or so to the invalid major,
still under injunctions not to tax his eyes, Miss Sanford became
conscious of an undercurrent of something akin to sensation, something
approximating unusual excitement. Both doctors had earlier been there,
and Wallen came again. The hospital attendant seemed abnormally anxious
and officious. Felicie, infelicitously named, if it was her name,
fluttered upstairs and down, in and out of my lady's chamber, effusively
greeting the neighbors who somewhat significantly began coming in with
anxious inquiry, tender of sympathy, etc. "Couldn't help noticing the
doctor had been over three times, so fearing the major might have had a
turn for the worse," etc., etc., but it wasn't the man so much as his
wife of whom they hoped for tidings. But Felicie could fence, and would
not favor even the adroit with the desired information. Madame was still
reposing herself. Madame would assuredly promenade at horse or in
vehicle later. Madame adored the fresh, free air, and though Madame was
desolate that, alas, her physicians, these medicines, adjured her that
it was the most important she should at this time live hours in the air
and sunshine, and she was forbidden the bliss of sharing her husband's
confinement and alleviating his ennui, it was for his sake more than her
own and for the sake of their cherished hope that she meekly yield to
their mandates; and was it not a circumstance the most felicitous that
the charming Mademoiselle should be so ever-ready to read to Monsieur
the Commandant?

With all its graceful, polished pleasantries at the expense of the
unmarried sister of thirty and upwards, the social world that professes
to regard her matrimonial prospects as past praying for, and herself as
oddly unattractive, is quick to take alarm when, apparently accepting
their unflattering view, she likewise accepts duties denied, as a rule,
to those who are attrac