Page:Doctor Syn - A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh.djvu/279

 valet that the mystery was solved at last and that the name was nothing more nor less than Whyllie.

"And I wonder what the devil she can want with me, Transome?"

The valet again made a brilliant suggestion that if he would take the pains to read the letter he would in all likelihood discover. So with a very bored air the perfumed soldier read the note right through, and threw it down upon the dressing-table with a great smile of self-complacency.

"She desires me to wait upon her this afternoon, my good fellow. She wishes positively to let bygones be bygones, and desires that I will bury all past differences by partaking of an hour's hospitality from their house. She also states that she has a wealthy niece but just returned from India, and she desires that this same niece may have the privilege of meeting the cream of the Rye bachelors. My dear fellow, what a truly terrible age we do live in! I have never heard of such daring and unblushing matchmaking. Well, I suppose it is a thing that we must expect in a Godforsaken little hole of a place like this, where the available bachelors are few indeed and possess not the smallest knowledge of how to decently deport themselves, much less their clothes."

"Besides, sir," the valet ventured to remark, "the red cloth of the military has a great attraction for matchmakers. It is always so very respectable, and it carries a most remarkable tone with it, to be sure, sir."