guest at
five o'clock and his mind was filled with pleasant anticipation. But
there was never a time with the major, no matter how filled the life was
around him with the excitement of events, with the echo of joy or
woe, the clash of social strife or the turmoil of vaster interests, when
he failed to be able to plunge into his books and lose himself
completely.

He was in the act of consuming a remnant of a corn muffin and a draft
from his paper at the same time, when he heard a merry voice in laughing
greeting to Jeff, and the rose damask curtains that hung between the
breakfast room and the hall parted, and Phoebe stood framed against
their heavy folds. She was the freshest, most radiant, tailor-made vision
imaginable and the major smiled a large joyful smile at the sight of her.

"Come in, come in, my dear; you are just in time for a hot muffin and a
fried chicken wing!" he exclaimed as he rose and drew her to the table.
The old volume crashed to the floor unheeded.

"Oh, no, Major, thank you, I couldn't think of it," exclaimed Phoebe.
"I'm lunching on a glass of malted milk and a raw egg these days. I lost
a pound and three-quarters last week and I feel so slim and graceful." As
she spoke she ran her hands down the charming lines of her tall figure
and turned slowly around for him to get the full effect of her loss. She
was most beautifully set up and the long lines melted into curves where
gracious curves ought to be.

"Nonsense, nonsense, Phoebe Donelson!" exclaimed the major. "Every pound
is an added charm. Sit here beside me." And he drew her into a chair at
the corner of the table.

In a twinkling of her black eyes Tempie had served her with the golden
muffins and crisp chicken. With a long sigh of absolute rapture Phoebe
resigned herself to the inevitable crash of her resolutions.

"Ah, I never was so miserable and so happy in all my life before," she
said. "I'm so hungry--and I'm so stout--and these muffins are wickedly
delicious."

"Phoebe," said the major sternly, "instead of starving yourself to death
you need to lie awake at night with lovers' troubles. Why, the summer I
courted Matilda I could have wrapped my belt around me twice. I have
never been portly since. It's loving you need, good, hard, miserable
loving. Didn't you ever hear of a 'lean and hungry lover'? Your conduct
is positively--have another muffin and this little slice of upper
joint--I say positively, unwomanly inhuman. Are there n