dow so that the Colonel might show the exact length
he desired; and when he had made up his mind, sat down again quietly on
her chair by the fireside, with hands crossed on her lap, waiting
placidly for the maid to bring the lamp.

Mrs. Parsons was a tall woman of fifty-five, carrying herself with a
certain diffidence, as though a little ashamed of her stature, greater
than the Colonel's; it had seemed to her through life that those extra
inches savoured, after a fashion, of disrespect. She knew it was her
duty spiritually to look up to her husband, yet physically she was
always forced to look down. And eager to prevent even the remotest
suspicion of wrong-doing, she had taken care to be so submissive in her
behaviour as to leave no doubt that she recognised the obligation of
respectful obedience enjoined by the Bible, and confirmed by her own
conscience. Mrs. Parsons was the gentlest of creatures, and the most
kind-hearted; she looked upon her husband with great and unalterable
affection, admiring intensely both his head and his heart. He was her
type of the upright man, walking in the ways of the Lord. You saw in the
placid, smooth brow of the Colonel's wife, in her calm eyes, even in the
severe arrangement of the hair, parted in the middle and drawn back,
that her character was frank, simple, and straightforward. She was a
woman to whom evil had never offered the smallest attraction; she was
merely aware of its existence theoretically. To her the only way of life
had been that which led to God; the others had been non-existent. Duty
had one hand only, and only one finger; and that finger had always
pointed definitely in one direction. Yet Mrs. Parsons had a firm mouth,
and a chin square enough to add another impression. As she sat
motionless, hands crossed, watching her husband with loving eyes, you
might have divined that, however kind-hearted, she was not indulgent,
neither lenient to her own faults nor to those of others; perfectly
unassuming, but with a sense of duty, a feeling of the absolute
rightness of some deeds and of the absolute wrongness of others, which
would be, even to those she loved best in the world, utterly unsparing.

"Here's a telegraph boy!" said Colonel Parsons suddenly. "Jamie can't
have arrived yet!"

"Oh, Richmond!"

Mrs. Parsons sprang from her chair, and a colour brightened her pale
cheeks. Her heart beat painfully, and tears of eager expectation filled
her eyes.

"It's probably onl