“But she’ll find it out.”

“Yes, seh, an’ she maght fuhgit it, but—­Ah crave yo’ pahdon, seh—­theh’s yo’ ahm what’s gone.”

“It’s too late to help that, Clem.”

“Well, seh—­now Ah was steddyin’—­if yo’ kin’ly grant yo’ grace of pahdon, seh—­lahkly ‘twould compliment Miss Cahline ef yo’ was to git yo’se’f fitted to one a’ them unnatchel limbs, seh.  Yo’ sho’ly go’n’ a’ pesteh huh rec’lections with that theh saggin’ sleeve, Mahstah Majah.”

But this kindly meant proposal I felt compelled to reject.

“No, Clem, you’ll have to fix it up with Miss Caroline the best you can.”

“Ve’y well, seh, thank yo’, seh—­Ah do mah ve’y best fo’ yo’.”

But I saw that he had little hope of ever winning for me the favor of his captious owner.

CHAPTER XIV

THE COMING OF MISS CAROLINE

She came to us auspiciously on a day in the first week of June.

Mistress Caroline Lansdale, a one-time belle of the Old Dominion, relict of the late Colonel Jere Lansdale, C.S.A., legislator and duellist, whose devotion to her in the days of their courtship had been the talk of two states.  Not less notable than his eloquence in the forum, his skill in the duello, had been the determined fervor with which he knelt at her feet.  And I waited no more than a hundred seconds in her presence to applaud his discernment.

I had pictured an old woman—­some aged trifle of an elder day, sad, withered, devitalized, intemperately reminiscent—­steeped in traditions that would leave her formidable, and impracticable as a friend to me.  I had fancied her thus, from Clem’s fragmentary and chance descriptions and my own knowledge of what she should be by all laws of the probable; and she was not as I had evolved her.

The day she came was one of Little Arcady’s best; quite all that her anxious servitor could have wished,—­a day of summer’s first abundance, when our green-bordered streets basked in a tempered sunlight, and our trim white cottages nestled coolly back of their flower gardens.  Harried alien as she was, she would be welcomed with smiles, and I was glad for her sake and Clem’s when I hurried home to dress for that first dinner with her.

On my way across the lawn at six-thirty I picked a bunch of the newly opened yellow roses as a peace offering, should one be needed.  Clem, in his most formal dress, received me ceremoniously at the door, his look betraying only the faintest, formalest acknowledgment of having ever encountered mine before.  With a superb bow toward the drawing-room and in tones stiffly magnificent, he announced, “Mistah Calvin Blake.”  It was excellently done, but I knew he had rehearsed the “Mistah.”

Then a woman rose from one of the deep old chairs to offer me her hand, and a soft quick laugh came as she perceived my difficulty, for my one hand held the roses.  These she gathered gracefully into her left hand, while her right fell into mine with a swift little pressure as she bade me welcome.