Socially she did not count.
She asked no more than to be allowed to feed and array the Major, and gaze after him as he walked down the street.
And what a progress it was! Again I can see him as he made ready for it, standing in his doorway at the head of a flight of steps, which led down from it to the small wrought-iron gate opening on the street.

The house has since been converted into bank premises and its threshold lowered for the convenience of customers.

Gone are the plants--the myrtle on the right of the porch, the jasmine on the left--with the balusters over which they rambled, and the steps which the balusters protected--ah, how eloquently the Major's sword clanked upon these as he descended! But the high-pitched roof remains, with its three dormer windows still leaning awry, and the plaster porch where a grotesque, half-human face grins at you from the middle of a fluted sea-shell.
Standing before it with half-closed eyes, I behold the steps again, and our great man at the head of them receiving his hat from the obsequious Scipio, drawing on his gloves, looping his malacca cane to his wrist by its tasselled cord of silk.

The descent might be military or might be civil: he was always Olympian.
"The handsome he is!" Miss Marty would sigh, gazing after him.
"A fine figure of a man, our Major!" commented Butcher Oke, following him from the shop-door with a long stare, after the day's joint had been discussed and chosen.
The children, to whom he was ever affable, stopped their play to take and return his smile.

Some even grinned and saluted.