For the Major: A Novelette

by Constance Fenimore Woolson

"Do you wish him to shout?"

"I wish him to take himself elsewhere. I am speaking freely, mamma; for I have noticed that you seem to like him."

"He is a variety—that is the explanation; we have so little variety here. But I do like him, Sara, or, rather, I like his songs. To me they are very beautiful."

Nothing more was said on either side. Sara had announced her dislike, and it had been ignored; her regard for Madam Carroll kept her from again expressing the feeling.

The present reception was considered an especially delightful one. One reason for this was that Madam Carroll had altered her hours; instead of from five to eight, they were now from eight to ten. True, the time was shorter; but this was compensated for by the change from afternoon to evening. For choice as had been the tone of elegant culture which had underlain these social meetings heretofore, there was no doubt but that they gained in the element of gayety by being deferred to candle-light. The candles inspired everybody; it was felt to be more festal. The ladies wore flowers in their hair, and Ferdinand Kenneway came out in white gloves. The Major, too, had not appeared so well all summer as he did this evening; every one remarked it. Not that the Major did not always appear well. "He is, and always has been, the first gentleman of our state. But to-night, how peculiarly distinguished he looks! His gray hair but adds to his noble appearance—don't you think so?—his gray hair and his wounded arm? And dear Madam Carroll, too, when have you seen her look so bright?"

Thus the ladies. But the daughter of the house, meanwhile, had never been more silent. To-night she merited, without doubt, their adjective "cold." She had not been able to be of much use to her father this evening. During the three quarters of an hour he had given to his guests Madam Carroll had not left him; together they had gone through the rooms, exchanging greetings, holding short conversations, inquiring after the health of the absent. As had been remarked, the little wife looked very bright. She had more color than usual; her complexion had never had, they said, a more exquisite bloom. She was dressed in white, with a large bunch of pink roses fastened in her belt, and as she stood by the side of her tall, gray-haired husband she looked, the junior warden declared, like "a Hebe." And then he carefully explained that he meant an American Hebe of delicate outlines, and not the Hebe of the ancient Greeks—"who always weighed two hundred."

The American Hebe talked with much animation; Far Edgerley admired her more than ever. After the Major had retired she was even gay; the junior warden having lost the spray of sweet-pea from his button-hole, with charming sportiveness she called him to her and replaced it with one of her pink roses.

Meanwhile Mr. Dupont was conducting himself after his usual fantasied fashion. He strolled about and leaned against the walls—a thing never done in Far Edgerley, on account of the paper; he stared at the head-dress of Mrs. General Hibbard, an impressive edifice of black lace and bugles; he talked a little to Miss Lucy Rendlesham, to the rage of Phipps; he turned his back on F. Kenneway; and he laughed at the poetical quotations of Mrs. Greer. And then he made no less than six profound bows before Miss Corinna, the dignified leader of St. John's choir.

He bowed whenever he met her, stopping especially for the purpose, drawing his feet together, and bending his head and body to an angle heretofore unwitnessed in that community. Miss Corinna, in chaste black silk, became at last, martial though she was, disconcerted by this extreme respect. She could not return it properly, because, most unfortunately, as she had always thought, the days of the courtesy, the only stately salutation for a lady, were gone by. She bowed as majestically as she could. But when it came to the seventh time, she said to her second sister, "Really, Camilla, his attentions are becoming too pressing. Let us retire." So they retired—to the wall. But even here they were not secure, Dupont discovering their retreat, and coming by expressly every now and then to bestow upon the stately maiden another salute.