“What chairs?” the Colonel asked, and Cora replied, “A sea chair, I think, and a wheel chair, which Tom Walker and Tim Biggs have just brought home.”

“My sea chair, and my wheel chair!  How in thunder can that be, when I’m sitting in the wheel, and how came Tom Walker, the biggest rascal in town, by my chairs, or Tim Biggs either?” the Colonel exclaimed; and Cora replied, “I think they said the schoolma’am had them.  Here’s a note from her to Mrs. Amy.”

Since his last attack of the gout the Colonel had in a measure forgotten Eloise, and ceased to care whether she were rooted and grounded in the fundamentals or not.  That Howard and Jack had been in the habit of calling upon her he did not suspect, and much less that for the last two weeks or more she had been enjoying his sea chair, and the fruit and flowers sent her with Mrs. Amy’s compliments.  At the mention of her he roused at once.

“That girl had my chair!  How the devil came she by it?  A note for Mrs. Amy!  Give it to me, and pick up that paper on the floor and go!”

Cora was not long in obeying, and the irascible old man was again alone.  First tearing Jake’s letter in strips, he turned Eloise’s note over in his hand, and read, “Mrs. Amy Smith, Crompton Place.”  The name “Smith” always made him angry, and he repeated it with a quick shutting together of his teeth.

“Smith!” he said, “I can’t abide it!  And what has she to say to Mrs. Smith?”

The note was not sealed, and without the least hesitancy he opened it and read, commenting as he did so.

“My dear Mrs. Smith.” (Her dear Mrs. Smith!  I like that.) “I am going away (Glad to hear it) and I wish to thank you for the many things you have sent me. (The deuce she has!  I didn’t know it.) The pretty hat I want to keep, with the slippers, which remind me of my mother.  (Slippers,—­remind her of her mother, who, I dare say, never wore anything but big shoes, and coarse at that,” the Colonel growled, and read on.) The chairs I return, with my thanks for them, and the fruit and flowers and books.  I would like so much to see you, and thank you personally, but as this cannot be I must do it on paper.  Be assured I shall never forget your kindness to me, a stranger.

“Your very truly,

“E.A.  SMITH.”

“Smith again!  E.A.  Smith!” the Colonel said.  “Why couldn’t she write her whole name?  E.A., ELIZA ANN, of course!  That’s who she is, ELIZA ANN SMITH!”

If there was one name he disliked as much as he did Smith, it was Eliza Ann, and he repeated it again:  “ELIZA ANN SMITH!  Fruit and flowers and books, and shoes and my sea chair and a wheel chair sent to her by Amy!  Where did she get the wheel, I’d like to know?  I don’t believe it!” he added, as a sudden light broke upon him.  “It’s that dog Howard’s work, and that other chap.”