"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.