Having no near relations or friends, I was
trying to make up my mind what to do, when I ran across John
Cavendish. I had seen very little of him for some years.
Indeed, I had never known him particularly well. He was a good
fifteen years my senior, for one thing, though he hardly looked
his forty-five years. As a boy, though, I had often stayed at
Styles, his mother's place in Essex.
We had a good yarn about old times, and it ended in his inviting
me down to Styles to spend my leave there.
"The mater will be delighted to see you again--after all those
years," he added.
"Your mother keeps well?" I asked.
"Oh, yes. I suppose you know that she has married again?"
I am afraid I showed my surprise rather plainly. Mrs. Cavendish,
who had married John's father when he was a widower with two
sons, had been a handsome woman of middle-age as I remembered
her. She certainly could not be a day less than seventy now. I
recalled her as an energetic, autocratic personality, somewhat
inclined to charitable and social notoriety, with a fondness for
opening bazaars and playing the Lady Bountiful.
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