"Indeed!" he returned, with languid indifference. "Out shopping, I suppose?"
"Really, major, you don't show much interest in the subject. But then that's the way with you men. You are all of you fickle and faithless."
"No, Mrs. Sheldon; you do me injustice--I am the soul of fidelity. But you know as well as I do that Miss Dearborn will have nothing to say to me."
"'Faint heart ne'er won fair lady,' major."
"'If she be not fair to me, What care I how fair she be?'"
"Does that mean that you have quite abandoned the field?" asked Mrs. Sheldon, in some surprise.
"So far as Miss Dearborn is concerned--yes."
"And you don't consider yourself fickle?"
"No. The fact is, my dear Mrs. Sheldon, I can't go on loving one who doesn't care a rap for me. I could have loved your niece to the end of my life if she had reciprocated my affection; but as she does not, I shall quietly resign her."
"You are sure you won't break your heart, major?" said the widow, laughing.
"I have not even sworn never to marry," continued Major Ashton.
"Perhaps you have already made a second choice?"
"And you have come to tell me of it? How delightful!"
"I wish I could be sure you would say that after hearing the name of that choice."
"Now for it!" thought the major. "Now to test the value of soft sawder!"
He drew his chair nearer that of Mrs. Sheldon, and began to speak.
"In paying my attention to Miss Dearborn," he said, "I had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the attractive qualities of another. I was not conscious of the interest which that other excited in me till my heart, thrown back upon itself in its loneliness, sought another object for its affection. Do you understand?"
"I don't think I do," murmured Mrs. Sheldon. "Please be more explicit."
"I will. Mrs. Sheldon, I am a man of few words, and you may think me abrupt. Will you deign to accept that which your niece has rejected? Will you be my wife?"
Mrs. Sheldon had not dreamed of marrying again, but she was a woman, and accessible to flattery. She admired the major; she knew that he was considered a catch, and though she did not love him, she reflected with exultation that it would be a great triumph for her to carry off the prize for which so many had sought.
