ater. He apologized for his rudeness and expressed a
wish for a glass of cool water. Three of these he drank with evidences
of profound relish. Then he drew his large silver watch from his pocket.

"On my word, Major, it's after six, and I shall be late for tea! I have
trespassed shamefully upon you!"

"The heat was very trying," I said.

"Quite enervating, indeed! I seem only now to be feeling its effects."

As he walked briskly down the now cooling street, he bared his brow to
the gentle breeze of evening.

To the ladies, solicitous about Miss Caroline, who called upon him a few
days later, he said, "She is a most admirable and lovely woman--not at
all a person one could bring one's self to address on the painful
subject of intoxicants. Had she offered me a glass of wine or other
stimulant, a way might have been opened, but I am delighted to say that
her hospitality went no farther than this innocent beverage." The
minister indicated on his study table a glass containing sweetened
ice-water in which some leaves of mint had been submerged.

"It is called a mint julep," he added, "though I confess I do not get
the same delicate tang from the herb that her black fellow does. As he
prepared the decoction I assure you its flavor was capital!"

CHAPTER XVII

THE TRUTH ABOUT SHAKSPERE AT LAST

Miss Caroline dutifully returned the calls that were paid her, with
never a suspicion that her slavery to strong drink had been the secret
inspiration of them. She was not yet awake to our sentiments in this
matter. She had given strong waters to the minister with a heart as
innocent as their disguise of ice and leafage had made them actually
appear to that good man. And I, who was well informed, hesitated to warn
her, hoping weakly that she would come to understand. For I had seen
there were many things that Miss Caroline had not to be told in order to
know.

For one, she had quickly divined that the ladies of Little Arcady
considered her furniture to be unfortunate. She knew that they scorned
it for its unstylishness; that some of them sympathized in the
humiliation that such impossible stuff must be to her; while others
believed that she was too unsophisticated to have any proper shame in
the matter. These latter strove by every device to have her note the
right thing in furniture and thus be moved to contrast it instructively
with her own: as when Mrs. Judge Robinson borrowed for an afternoon Aunt
Delia McCormic