CHAPTER IV
A REMARKABLE HOUSEHOLD
Everybody in Cedarville knew and respected General Haines. His ancestors for four generations had lived and died in the fine old mansion which he now occupied. The General was commonly considered a "character." He was dignified in appearance and irascible in temper; a perfect martinet on the subject of deportment in the rising generation; a stern enemy to cowardice and untruthfulness, while in many other matters he was as impracticable as a babe and as timorous as an old lady. His face was bearded and stern; his voice terrible. Whenever he lost his temper, which was every other minute, he shouted as though he had been at the head of an army. His heart was tender withal, and altogether he was as remarkable a gentleman as one often meets.
He was unmarried because he had never known a woman the equal of his mother, whose memory he adored. He had lived, since his mother's death, a life of comparative isolation in the old Haines' mansion, which was conducted as nearly as possible after the fashion of the last century, for the General hated innovations. He rarely left home, and he had not seen the Walcott twins since their babyhood.
In his housekeeper, Sarah, General Haines had a counterpart to the full as eccentric as himself. Warm-hearted, quick-tempered, and sharp-tongued, Sarah was the only person for whom the General felt wholesome awe. She ruled him completely; strangely enough she considered him the reverse of forbidding. This is not so singular, perhaps, in the light of the fact that the General seldom made a move without first consulting Sarah; when he did he generally regretted it!
His letter to Mr. Walcott was an instance where he had acted without orders, and when his nephew telegraphed that Gay would arrive on the noon train from New York, on the 8th of August, the doughty General realized what he had done. He had bidden a guest, possibly a troublesome one, to his house without Sarah's knowledge. No wonder he trembled and carried Mr. Walcott's telegram crumpled in his pocket two hours before he mentioned it!
On the eventful evening that May and Gay received their sentence of banishment, and at about the same hour, General Haines paced back and forth on the broad porch of his house, with the terrible telegram in his pocket. As he walked, he called himself a coward, and declared over and over again that he would be master in his own house!
This device for promoting courage he repeated several times, but it would not work. At the end of a half hour he was no better prepared to face Sarah than he had been in the beginning. Just as he was repeating for the fiftieth time the dreadful fib that he would be master in his own house or he would know the reason why, Sarah passed the porch. She wore a white dimity sunbonnet, although the sun had gone down in the west, and carried a small watering-pot. She had been giving her asters a shower-bath by way of encouraging them to flower early. She did not appear to notice General Haines.
"Sarah," said the General.