the table near her, "did you realize that two months have passed since I
came to--to--"

"Came _home_, child," prompted the major as he touched lightly the
restless hand near his own.

"I am beginning to feel as if it might be that, and yet I don't know--not
until I talk to you about it all. Everybody has been good to me. I feel
that they really care and I love it--and them all! But, Major, did
you--know--my father--well?"

"Yes, my dear." He answered, looking her straight in the eyes, "I knew
Peters Brown and had pleasantly hostile relations with him always."

"This memorandum--I got it together before I came down here, while I was
settling up his estate. It is the list of the investments he made while
in the South for the twenty years after the war. I want to talk them over
with you." She looked at the major squarely and determinedly.

"Fire away," he answered with courage in his voice that belied the
feeling beneath it.

"I see that in eighteen seventy-nine he bought lumber lands from Hayes
Donelson. The price seems to have been practically nominal in view of
what he sold a part of them for three years later. Was Hayes Donelson
Phoebe's father? I want to know all about him."

"My dear, you are giving a large order for ancient history--Captain
Donelson couldn't fill it himself if he were alive. Those lumber lands
were just a stick or two that he threw on the grand bonfire. He sold