I

It was a lovely morning, and Major Shepherd walked rapidly, his toes
turned well out, his shoulders set well back. Behind him floated the
summer foliage of Appleton Park--the family seat of the Shepherds--and
at the end of the smooth, white road lay the Major's destination--the
small town of Branbury.

The Major was the medium height; his features were regular and cleanly
cut. He would have been a handsome man if his eyes had not been
two dark mud-coloured dots, set close together, wholly lacking in
expression. A long brown moustache swept picturesquely over bright,
smoothly shaven cheeks, and the ends of this ornament were beginning
to whiten. The Major was over forty. He carried under his arm a
brown-paper parcel (the Major was rarely seen without a brown-paper
parcel), and in it were things he could not possibly do without--his
diary and his letter-book. The brown-paper parcel contained likewise
a number of other papers; it contained the Major's notes for a book he
was writing on the principal county families in Buckinghamshire. The
Major had been collecting information for this book for many years,
and with it he hoped to make two or three hundred pounds--money which
he stood sorely in need of--and to advance his position in the county,
a position which, in his opinion, his father had done little to
maintain, and which, to his very deep regret, his sisters were now
doing their best to compromise. That very morning, while packing up
his brown-paper parcel, some quarter of an hour ago, he had had a
somewhat angry interview on this subject with his sisters. For he had
thought it his duty to reprove them for keeping company with certain
small London folk who had chosen to come to live in the neighbourhood.
Ethel had said that they were not going to give up their friends
because they were not good enough for him, and Maud had added
significantly that they were quite sure that their friends were quite
as good as the friend he was going to see in Branbury. The Major
turned on his heel and left the house.

As he walked towards Branbury he asked himself if it were possible
that they knew anything about Charlotte Street; and as he approached
the town he looked round nervously, fearing lest some friend might
pop down upon him, and, after some hesitation, decided to take a long
detour so as to avoid passing by the house of some people he knew. As
he made his way through a bye-street his step quickened, and at the
corne