I was busy in the village for seven hours of the day, but I went home to tea, and occasionally some lady caller of my mother’s would remark on the pertinacity with which Mrs. Leroy kept herself secluded; but further[Pg 51] than that I knew and heard nothing. Neither did I care, for I had never been a lady’s man, and at thirty-eight I was not likely to get up much of an interest for one I had never seen.
I was cashier of the Southbridge Bank, and, as ours was a manufacturing town, our institution did a very flourishing business, and kept one stirring most of the time.
It was a hot day in August, and i sat down for a moment, with a new number of a favorite magazine in my hand. It was so hot, and so near noon, that no one would be in until after dinner, I thought, and i should get a chance to read that article on South America of which there was so much said.
Scarcely, however, had I cut the first leaf before the door opened and a lady entered. As it was a lady, of course I could not do otherwise than bow, and be very polite to her.
She wanted a check cashed. I looked it over. It was New Orleans paper, and made payable to Eudora Leroy, or order.
Ah, thought I, looking at my fair visitor, so the old lady has a pretty daughter; and then I wondered that no one had ever spoken of her.
The face that gleamed on me through the black lace veil was a very beautiful face, though masked somewhat by lines of care or sorrow. Perhaps the old lady was tyrannical.
“Have you an order for the payment of a draft?” I asked.
“None is needed,” she replied quietly. “I will indorse it.” And, taking up a pen, she wrote the name on the back, in a free, graceful hand, Eudora Leroy.
“Then you are Mrs. Leroy?” I said, in some surprise.