Sometimes the Major would walk up town and inspect his property with great pride. It was balm to his proud heart to walk up and down the spacious avenue, and survey the red brick villas smiling amidst trim gardens. Tidman's birth was humble,--his father had been a small tenant farmer of the Ainsleighs,--and he had started life without even the proverbial shilling. For many years he was absent from his native land, and returned to find fortune waiting for him on the door step. To be sure he brought a nest-egg home with him. Nevertheless, but for his astuteness in buying land and in building he would not have acquired such a good income. So the Major had some cause for self congratulation, when he paced up and down Tidman's Avenue. Two days after his dinner with Rupert Ainsleigh, the Major spick and span as usual,--he always looked as though he had stepped out of a bandbox,--was strutting up the Avenue. Half way along he came face to face with a withered little woman, who looked like the bad fairy of the old nursery tales. She wore a poke bonnet, a black dress and, strange to say, a scarlet shawl. Her age might have been about fifty-five, but she looked even older. With her dress picked up, and holding a flower in her hand, she came mincing along smiling at the world with a puckered face and out of a pair of very black and brilliant eyes. She looked a quaint old-fashioned gentlewoman of the sort likely to possess a good income, for it seemed that no pauper would have dared to dress in so shabby and old-fashioned a manner. Consequently it was strange that the gallant Major should have showed a disposition to turn tail when he set eyes on her. She might indeed have been the veritable witch she looked, so pale turned Major Tidman's ruddy face. But the old dame was not going to let him escape in this way. "Oh good morning," she said in a sharp voice like a saw, "how well you are looking dear Major Tidman--really so very well. I never saw you look younger. The rose in your button-hole is not more blooming. How do you keep your youth so? I remember you"-- But the Major cut her short. He had enough of flattering words which he guessed she did not mean, and didn't want her to remember anything, for he knew her memory extended disagreeably to the time when he had been a poor and humble nobody. "I'm in a hurry Miss Pewsey," he said twirling his stick, "good-morning ma'am--morning." "If you're going to see Dr. Forge," said Miss Pewsey, her black eyes glittering like jet. "I've just come from his house. He is engaged." "I can wait I suppose, Miss Pewsey," said Tidman bristling, "that is, supposing I am calling on the doctor." "Then you really are: not on account of your health I'm sure. I do hope you aren't ill, dear Major. We all look forward to you shining at the ball, which is to take place at the Hotel Bristol." "I may be there, Miss Pewsey. I may be there,--in fact," the Major flourished his stick again, "I am one of the stewards."