much-whiskered major appeared on the street, looking (as he always did)
as if he had just been shaved, brushed and polished, the sight was an
extremely pleasing one, except to certain young men who feared for the
validity of their titles to their respective sweethearts should the
major chance to be affectionate.

But the major gave no cause for complaint. When he first came to the
village he bought Rose Cottage, opposite the splendid Wittleday
property, and he spent most of his time (his leave-of-absence always
occurring in the Summer season) in his garden, trimming his shrubs,
nursing his flowering-plants, growing magnificent roses, and in all ways
acting utterly unlike a man of blood. Occasionally he played a game of
chess with Parson Fisher, the jolly ex-clergyman, or smoked a pipe with
the sadler-postmaster; he attended all the East Patten tea-parties, too,
but he made himself so uniformly agreeable to all the ladies that the
mothers in Israel agreed with many sighs, that the major was not a
marrying man.

It may easily be imagined, then, that when one Summer the major
reappeared at East Patten with a brother officer who was young and
reasonably good-looking, the major's popularity did not diminish.

The young man was introduced as Lieutenant Doyson, who had once saved
the major's life by a lucky shot, as that chieftain, with empty pistols,
was trying to escape from a well-mounted Indian; and all the young
ladies in town declared they _knew_ the lieutenant _must_ have done
something wonderful, he was _so_ splendid.

But, with that fickleness which seems in some way communicable from
wicked cities to virtuous villages, East Patten suddenly ceased to