“As dashing a souldier, madam,” said the major, warming into eloquence, “as ever hewed a way through the ranks of the enemy, or stormed the snow-clad passes of the Himalayas.”

“Fancy!” ejaculated the young lady with the crochet needle.

“Many a time,” continued the soldier, “he and I after some hard-fought battle have slept togither upon the blood-stained ground wrapped in the same martial cloak.”

“Fancy!” cried both ladies in chorus; and they could not have selected a more appropriate interjection.

“And when at last he died,” the major went on with emotion, “cut in two with a tulwar in a skirmish with hill tribes, he turned to me—­”

“After being cut in two?” interrupted the younger lady.

“He turned to me,” said the major inflexibly, “and putting his hand in mine, he said, with his last breath, ’Toby’—­that was what he always called me—­’Toby,’ he said, ‘I have a—­’ Your husband was his brother, I think you said, ma’am?”

“No, it was Mr. Scully’s uncle who went into the army.”

“Ah, quite so.  ‘I have a nephew in England,’ he said, ’who is very dear to me.  He is married to a charming woman.  Search out the young couple, Toby.  Guard over them.  Protict them!’ Those were his last words, madam.  Next moment his sowl had fled.  When I heard your name casually mintioned I could not feel satisfied in me mind until I had come across and ascertained if you were the lady in question.”

Now, this narrative not only surprised the widow, which was not unnatural, seeing that it was entirely an invention of the old soldier’s, but it appealed to her weakest point.  The father of the deceased Scully had been of plebeian origin, so that the discovery in the family of a real major-general—­albeit he was dead—­was a famous windfall, for the widow had social ambitions which hitherto she had never been able to gratify.  Hence she smiled sweetly at the veteran in a way which stimulated him to further flights of mendacity.

“Sure he and I were like brothers,” he said.  “He was a man that any one might well be proud to know.  Commander-in-chief said to me once, ‘Clutterbuck,’ says he, ’I don’t know what we’d do if we had a European war.  I’ve no one I can rely on,’ says he.  ‘There’s Scully,’ says I.  ‘Right,’ says he, ‘Scully would be our man.’  He was terribly cut up when this occurred.  ‘Here’s a blow to the British army!’ he remarked, as he looked down at him where he lay with a bullet through his head—­he did, madam, be Jove!”

“But, major, I understood you to say that he was cut in two?”

“So he was.  Cut in two, and shot and mortally wounded in a dozen places besides.  Ah, if he could have foreseen that I should have met you he would have died happy.”

“It’s strange he never let us know of his existence when he was alive,” the widow remarked.

“Pride, madam, pride!  ‘Until I reach the top of the tree, Toby,’ he used to say, ‘I shall niver reveal myself to me brother.’”