Whatever the reason for the sudden appearance of this ravishing vision, its effect upon my overstrung nerves was both instantaneous and wrenching. Moisture welled behind my eyelids, and a racking sob rose up from the innermost depths of my sorrow-fraught bosom. In the meantime, Virginia continued with her song:

“Sweet William was buried in one graveyard,
Barb’ra Allen in another;
A rose grew on Sweet Williams grave
And a brier on Barb’ra Allen’s.

“They grew and they grew to the steeple top,
And there they grew no higher;
And there they tied in a true lover’s knot,
The rose clung to—”

All at once, I became aware that Virginia’s song had broken off. My tear-dampened lids fluttered open. “Why, Sissy,” I sniffled, extracting a handkerchief from the pocket of my trousers and employing it to dab the moisture from my eyes, cheeks, and nose. “What has caused you to cease in so abrupt and surprising a manner?”

Gazing at the object of my query, I perceived that she was staring in a most quizzical fashion at a spot somewhere to the rear of my left shoulder. Swivelling in my seat, I was surprised to see Muddy posed at the threshold of the parlor. Her plain yet (to my eyes) intensely pleasing visage wore a look of barely suppressed excitement, akin to that of a messenger bearing news of an exceedingly thrilling nature.

“Sorry to interrupt, Eddie dear,” the good woman declared, “but there is a visitor here—a most distinguished visitor, if I may say—to see you.”

Given the untimeliness of the hour—which was already well past eight o’clock—this pronouncement was startling indeed. No sooner had it issued from her lips than she moved to one side, whereupon the mysterious caller—who had, until that moment, remained invisible behind her—stepped boldly forth into the room. I need hardly describe the intense pang of dismay that smote my heart at the sight of this unwelcome being, whose earlier farewell to me I had gratefully—though, as it now appeared, prematurely—viewed as permanent.

It was none other than Colonel Crockett!

CHAPTER 8

He was attired in his customary garments, with the addition of a wide-brimmed, high-crowned black felt hat which—in a rare concession to the precepts of civilized behavior—he had evidently doffed upon entering our premises and was now clutching in one hand.

Stuffing my tear-dampened handkerchief into the breast pocket of my frockcoat, I rose from my chair and offered him a civil, if less than wholehearted, greeting.