His favorite remark was: "Br-r-r-r!!"
That is as near as it can be reproduced in print, but from the manner in which his lips rolled when he delivered it, and the explosive force with which it ended, you could see that he had learned it from a Bengal tiger. His was an imposing presence, but his speaking part was not large. In fact, his only contributions to social intercourse were the exclamation which has been quoted, and one other.
This sounded like "Yah!" but it was delivered with a rasping snarl which must be heard to be appreciated. Such was his manner toward his equals; toward servants and underlings he was not so agreeable. On the whole, there was reason to think that he was somehow related to the celebrated personage who "eats 'em alive," or to that other individual called Gritchfang, who "guzzled hot blood, and blew up with a bang."
The colonel was a genial and interesting old "party," and we lament his disappearance.
There was a turtle-dove to coo, however, in the same stories where the colonel roared. This was the dying maiden. She has not altogether left us—her final struggles are protracted. Her dissolution is expected at almost any moment now.
Her specialty was being wan.
Come what might, at any hour of the day or night, under all circumstances, she was very, very wan. You could never catch her forgetting it. She reminded you of Bunthorne's injunction to the twenty lovesick maidens—she made you think of faint lilies.
Usually she lay on a couch in the drawing-room, but she could, with assistance, make her way to the window to wave her handkerchief to Cousin Harry departing to the war. She was in love with Cousin Harry, but knew that he cared most for proud, red-cheeked Sister Gladys. So she suffered in silence, and when Cousin Harry forged a few checks, she bought them up, and arranged a happy marriage between Harry and Gladys—who was in love with someone else.