["Em"]
CHAPTER I
[THE MAJOR'S INSTRUCTIONS]
"Don't tell me, miss; don't tell me, I say."
And Major Clifford stood up, and shook his fist and stamped his foot in a way suggestive of the Black Country and wife beating. But Miss Maynard, who sat opposite to him, meek and mild, being used to his eccentric behaviour, was quite equal to the occasion. When he got very red in the face and seemed on the point of breaking a blood vessel, she just stood up, moved across the room, and put her hands upon his shoulders.
"Uncle," she said, and her face was very close to his, "I'm sure I'm very much obliged to you."
"It's all very well," the Major replied, pretending to struggle from her grasp. "It's all very well, but I say----"
"Of course. That's exactly what you do say."
And she kissed him. Then it was all over.
When a young woman of a certain kind kisses an elderly gentleman of a certain temperament, it soothes his savage breast, like oil upon the troubled waters. And as Miss Maynard was a young woman whose influence was not likely to be ineffective with any man whether young or old, Major Clifford was tolerably helpless in her hands.