Free Ever After by Elswyth Thane Page A

questions about the Nile campaign with patient courtesy and invisible amusement. Meanwhile, he wondered about Miss Day. She said so little and she looked so sweet. He had never seen anything like that dimple at the corner of her mouth, and her low voice with its soft Virginia cadence he found quite enchanting. Miss Day. And what on earth were the men in America made of that this delightful creature should be still unmarried ?
    At this point the Major’s own thoughts surprised him. He was anything but a ladies’ man, and since the death of his wife in India years before, he had been all soldier, demanding active service with his men rather than cushy staff jobs, existing on a minimum of leave, living for the Army and the service he rendered to it till he had become, he was sure, a very dull dog indeed. The death of his elderly Aunt Sophie had been no grief to him, as he had not seen her for years, and he knew perfectly well that there was no sentiment in the making of the will which left Farthingale to him. She had long been a widow, childless, almost the last of her family. She had no other heirs, except an ancient cousin or two, who had received legacies. As her sister’s only child, he was the logical beneficiary. But her income stopped with her death and she had not been able to leave him the money to keep up the estate as she had done in her lifetime. Liking comfort, and always considerate of her ageing servants, she had put in the bathrooms and a telephone only a short time before she died. Farthingale was no good to a man who had no family and no intentions or entanglements, only a small income besides his pay, and no prospect of more. The only thing to do was to put the place on the market and perhaps later on invest the money he got for it in a much smaller house into which he would, he supposed, retire and bore himself to death, if he survived his usefulness in the field.
    Something of all this he explained to them with engaging frankness , and assured them of his willingness to let Farthingale to them for the summer if it met with their approval when they saw it. He heard with the keenest interest that their ancestor St. John Sprague had been born in the house in 1749, and listened attentively while Bracken diagrammed how it was that neither his own name nor Sue’s was Sprague. The Major admitted that he had no idea how his aunt, whose name was Twombley, had acquired the house. So far as he knew, she had always had it. As a boy, he had sometimesbeen taken there by his mother to stay, at Easter holidays and so on….
    He broke off in the middle of a sentence, as though struck by a startling idea. He looked from one to the other of them, his eyes coming last to Sue, who looked back inquiringly.
    “I say,” he began with sudden diffidence. “Would you care to—well, no, I suppose not, but just in case—that is, we might all go down there for Easter, you know, if you’ve nothing better to do.”
    “Oh!” cried Virginia. “Oh, Bracken, let’s !”
    The Major’s eyes waited on Sue. He sat leaning a little forward, waiting for her to speak. But Sue, for whom things sometimes began towhirl, was silent, so he said:
    “I think you’d be comfortable there, I’m only just back from having a look myself, and they did me quite well. My aunt’s cook stayed on in the house as caretaker, and she could wangle enough maids in the village to look after us. As a matter of fact, I’m afraid the old lady rather goes with the house. I haven’t the heart to turn her out, at least until it’s sold—”
    “ Of  course we’d be comfortable!” said Virginia, and trod on Bracken’s foot under the table to indicate to him that she simply had to go to Farthingale for Easter.
    “Won’t you please say you’ll come?” the Major entreated Sue.
    “Why, yes—if the children would like to—” she began uncertainly. “I think it would be delightful.”
    “Are the children willing?” he demanded of Bracken, with his