For the Major: A Novelette

by Constance Fenimore Woolson

While they were thus engaged, with Bayard's fortunes not much improved as yet, the door opened, and Sara Carroll came in. The Major was sitting with his spectacles on and head bent forward, in order to read the numbers on the dominoes; his hand, poised over the game while he considered his choice, had the shrivelled appearance, with the veins prominent on the back, which more than anything else betrays the first feebleness of old age. As his daughter came in he looked up, first through his spectacles, then, dropping his head a little, over them, after the peering fashion of old men. But the instant he recognized her his manner, attitude, even his whole appearance, changed, as if by magic; his spectacles were off; he had straightened himself, and risen. "Ah! you have returned?" he said. "Scar had his lessons so well that I have permitted him to amuse himself with his dominoes for a while, as you see. You are back rather sooner than you expected, aren't you?"

"We had to postpone our visit to Mrs. Hibbard," said Sara.

The Major's lips formed, "of the Mexican War;" but he did not utter the syllables aloud, and immediately thereafter seemed to take himself more vigorously in hand, as it were. He walked to the hearth-rug, and took up a position there with his shoulders back, his head erect, and one hand in the breast of his frock-coat. "It is quite proper that you should go to see those two ladies, my daughter; the Ashleys are connected with the Carrolls by marriage, though the tie is a remote one, and the mother of Mrs.—Mrs.—the other lady you were mentioning; her name has just escaped me—"

"Hibbard," said Sara.

"Yes, Mrs. Hibbard of the Mex—I mean, that Mrs. Hibbard's mother was a Witherspoon. It is right that you should recognize these—ah, these little distinctions and differences." He brought out the last words in full, round tones. The Major's voice had always been a fine one.

He was a handsome, soldierly-looking man, tall, broad-shouldered, with noble bearing, and bold, well-cut features. He was dressed in black, with broad, stiff, freshly starched white cuffs, and a high standing collar, round which was folded a black silk cravat that when opened was three-quarters of a yard square. His thin gray hair, moustache, and imperial were cut after the fashion affected by the senior officers of the old army—the army before the war.

"They are not especially interesting in themselves, those two ladies," remarked his daughter, taking off her little black bonnet. "Miss Honoria cares more about one's shoes—whether or not they are dusty enough to injure her oiled floors—than about one's self; and Mrs. Hibbard talks all the time about her ducks."

"True, quite true. Those ducks are extremely tiresome. I have had to hear a great deal about them myself," said the Major, in an injured tone, forgetting for a moment his military attitude. "What do I know of ducks? Yet she will talk about them."

"Why should you listen?" said Sara, drawing off her gloves.

"Ah, we must not forget that her mother was a Mex—I mean, a Witherspoon. It is not necessary for us, for you, to pay many visits, my daughter; our position does not require it. We—ah—we open our house; that is enough; our friends come to us; they do not expect us to go to them."