Excerpt from The Firm of Girdlestone, Vol. 2 of 2: A Romance of the Unromantic The servant disappeared with the card, and presently returned with a request that he would step up. The old soldier stumped his way upstairs with the firm foot, fall of one who has taken a thing in hand and means to carry it through at all hazard. As he ascended, it seemed to him that he heard the sound of feminine laughter in the distance. If so, it could hardly have come from the lady whom he was in quest of, for he was shown into a large and well-furnished room, where she sat looking demure and grave' enough, as did an other young lady who was crocheting on the ottoman beside her. The major made his most courtly bow, though he felt very much as the Spaniards may be supposed to have done when they saw their ships blazing behind them. I trust you will excuse this intrusion On my part, he. Began. I happened to hear that a lady of the name of Scully was stopping here. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.