"It's been an uncommon good investment," he reflected, "and knocks the photograph business into a cocked hat. Then there's Sybilla—she goes with the bargain, too. Three hundred pounds and a handsome, black-eyed wife. I wish she hadn't such a devil of a temper. I'll take her home to the farm, and if mother doesn't break her in she'll be the first she ever failed with."
Mr. Parmalee retired betimes, slept soundly, and was up in the gray day-dawn. Breakfast, piping hot, smoked on the table when Mrs. Denover appeared.
"Eat, drink and be merry," said Mr. Parmalee. "Go in and win. Try that under-done steak, and don't took quite so much like the ghost of Hamlet's father, if you can help it."
The woman tried with touching humility to please him, and did her best, but that best was a miserable failure.
A cab came for them in half an hour, and whirled them off on the first stage of their journey.
In the golden light of the spring afternoon Mr. Parmalee made his appearance again at the Blue Bell Inn, with a veiled lady, all in black, hanging on his arm.
"This here lady is my maiden aunt, come over from the State of Maine to see your British institutions," Mr. Parmalee said, in fluent fiction, to the obsequious landlady. "She's writing a book, and she'll mention the Blue Bell favorably in it. Her name is Miss Hepzekiah Parmalee. Let her have your best bedroom and all the luxuries this hotel affords, and I will foot the bill."
He lighted a cigar and sallied forth.
"Miss Hepzekiah Parmalee" dined alone in her own room; then sat by the window, with white face and strained eyes, waiting for Mr. Parmalee's return.
It was almost dark when he came. He entered hurriedly, flushed and excited.