"I never heard of such a thing," said Captain Featherstone.

Amos scratched his head.

"Well, Mars Captain, I reckon dere's a heap o' tings about a farm dat army ossifers never hearn tell of—meaning no onrespect to dere book larnin'. But jes' de same, dat air Guernsey am drunk."

We all looked at her with interest.

"But what will she do?" I said. "How does being drunk affect a cow?"

"Jes' same as er man, Miss Faith, honey. Jes' look at her! She used to be de shyest, mos' ladylake cow awn de place. She always seemed to 'member dat she'd had a calf en was a lady ob quality. Now look at her! She don' keer! She'd jes' as soon lean her head on de Boss's shoulder en ax him fer a drink er de loan ob his cee-gyar. She's done forgot dat she's a mudder. She feels lake she don' know which is de odder side ob de street en she don' want to be tol'! Dat's what drink does for man or beas'."

"But will it hurt her milk?" I said, soberly, for the rest were screaming at the imbecile expression of the Guernsey while Amos thus diagnosed her case.

"No'm, no'm. Leastways hit won't hurt huh none. It'll dry her up, dough. Such a jag as dat Guernsey's got will dry up her milk for two weeks er mo'. En I wouldn't keer to be de one ter milk huh, neider!"

Here was Jimmie's opportunity.

"Nonsense!" he said. "I'll milk her! I'm not afraid of what a drunken cow will do. Let me know, Amos, when you want her milked."

"All right, Mistah Jimmie. I sho will let you know, yas, sir. Now den, Missus fool cow! Ef you can leab off chattin' wid de quality long enough to go teh yo' stall, I'll show you de way."

I repeat—the Guernsey used to be our best-behaved, most intelligent and ladylike cow, but when Amos endeavoured to lead her away, she calmly sank down just where she was, and went to sleep.

This was too much for Amos. Fun was fun, to be sure, and he seemed glad we were pleased by the Guernsey's antics, but his wrath at a cow's taking the tennis-court for her afternoon nap upset his ideas of propriety.

"Doesn't she remind you for all the world," cried Jimmie, with tears in his eyes, "of a man who sinks to sleep with his arm affectionately around a lamp-post? Her feet are in an attitude that a painter would call 'one of unstudied grace!'"

But Amos, in a fury, pushed, pulled, slapped, and shoved her into a sitting posture, and, by dint of leaning upon each other as if both were under the weather, he finally got her started toward the barn, she, every once in awhile, pausing to lift a fore foot hilariously before planting it on her next uncertain step.

Several hours later I saw Jimmie, with a shining new milk-pail on his arm, followed by Amos with the milking-stool in his hand and his tongue in his cheek, go toward the Guernsey's stall.

We all looked expectantly at each other, then rose, as if by common consent, and followed.

Lady Mary tucked her arm under Mrs. Jimmie's, and gurgled deliciously.

"Oh, dear Mrs. Jimmie! Is your husband always as amusing as he has been here at Peach Orchard? If he is, I am sure mamma would just delight in him—only things aren't always happening at Combe Abbey to show him off as they are at Mrs. Jardine's."

Mrs. Jimmie looked dubious at the first part of this remark, flushed with pleasure at the middle of it, and looked reproachfully at me at the last.

Why is everything always my fault, I wonder?

"Well, I don't know," she said, slowly, "but it does seem as if Jimmie always gets into more troub—I mean, has more adventures when he and Faith are together than when he and I are alone. Oh, oh! What can be the matter with that cow! Oh, I wonder if she has killed my husband!"

We all looked just in time to see the Guernsey gallop madly across the garden, plough her way through the sweet corn, and disappear gaily over the fence, heading for the trolley-tracks, with Amos a close second as she took the hurdle.

Bee's English coachman, who took great pride in the kitchen-garden, hastily followed to see what damage she had done, but at Mrs. Jimmie's agonized entreaty to know what had become of Jimmie, I called him, and he came, respectfully touching his forelock in a way which Jimmie always said "was worth the price of admission."

"I think she has about done for the Country Gentleman, ma'am. She has trampled it so it will never be any good."

Mrs. Jimmie turned white, and leaned gaspingly on Lady Mary.

"Trampled him!" she cried. "Oh, come! Come quickly, and see if she has killed him!"

"My dear!" I cried, almost hysterical over her mistake. "The Country Gentleman is a kind of sweet corn—not Jimmie! See, there he is now. Look, dearest!"

Sure enough, there came Jimmie, a trifle sheepish, but defiant. His derby hat was without a brim, the milk-pail was jammed together like a folding lunch-box, and had a little foam on the outside, as the sole product of his milking prowess.

We asked no questions, but our eager faces demanded an explanation.

He gave it,—terse as was his wont.

"Well, I'll bet that damned cow never switches her tail in anybody's face again!"

We needed no further description of what had happened. The picture was complete.

Strange to say, Lady Mary seemed to comprehend better than any of us. She gurgled with laughter the whole evening, and lavished attentions upon Jimmie so flatteringly that he ceased to look furtively at me and became quite cocky before the evening was over, pretending that he had done all these things to help me entertain my guests.

As we went up-stairs that night, Mrs. Jimmie clutched my arm, and, with eyes as big as stars, said, in a tense whisper:

"My dear, we are invited to Combe Abbey! Think of it! To visit the Duchess of Strowther! Lady Mary is going to write to her mother immediately!"

If it had been anybody except dear Mrs. Jimmie, I should have said:

"Is she going to invite the cow, too?"

But as it was, I squeezed back, and said, earnestly:

"I am so glad, dear Mrs. Jimmie!"



CHAPTER XI

ON THE GENTLE ART OF WASTING OTHER PEOPLE'S TIME

On the last day of the house-party we decided to hold a family gathering in the evening, to which each guest must bring a written sketch of some member of the household. It was to be a very short sketch, not to consume over ten minutes in the reading, and no one was to get angry, and no one was to get his feelings hurt.

Aubrey had to go into New York to attend a dress rehearsal of his new play, but he promised to write something on the train, and have it ready. His absence left me at once to play hostess and to receive the queer, curious, and inconsequent persons who flock to the door of the successful playwright, with every wish from obtaining his autograph to an offer to stage his plays.

My time was all taken up until eleven o'clock, in ordering and setting the servants at work, righting their wrongs, and pottering around among my large family. At three I had an engagement. This left me but a short time in which to write my sketch. I begged Bee to help me out, but never yet have I succeeded in impressing Bee with any respect for my working hours. For this reason I laid down the law with open energy to Billy, hoping that Bee would see that I meant her.

I began the campaign at breakfast. Bee and Billy and I were alone.

"At eleven o'clock I am going to begin to write," I announced, firmly, "and, Billy, I want you distinctly to understand that you are not to run your engine in my hall. Do you hear?"

"Um—huh," said Billy, smiling at me like a cherub.

Bee leaned over and wiped the butter off Billy's chin.

"Before I go to town to-day I want to talk over that blue silk with you," she said. "I don't know how much to get, and Eugenie is so extravagant unless I get the stuff and tell her I got all there was in the piece. Then she makes it do. Would you have it made up with lace?"

"Now, look here, Bee," I said, "I am not going to get my head all muddled with dressmaking before I begin to write. I have all my ideas ready to write that article for to-night. I am going to tell about Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie at Canterbury. Don't you remember what happened? You know if you side-track me on clothes I simply cannot do a thing."

"I know," said Bee, placidly. "No, Billy, not another lump of sugar. Be quiet while mamma talks to Tattah. I know, but it seems to me you might have selected another day to write. You know I wanted to consult you about the dinner Thursday."

"I didn't select the day. The day selected me."

"Why didn't you write yesterday?"

"I didn't have any time."

"Why don't you wait until afternoon?"

"You know they are to be read tonight."

"Oh, very well, go ahead, and I won't bother you. I dare say the dinner will be all right. But if you would just tell me which to use, lace or chiffon with the blue?"

"Lace," I said, in desperation.

Bee half-way closed her eyes and took Billy's hand out of the cream-pitcher.

"I think I'll use chiffon," she said.

The only use my advice is to Bee is to fasten her on to the opposite thing. She says I help her to decide because I am always wrong.

"Now will you keep Billy away and excuse me to all visitors, and don't come near my door for three hours and send my luncheon up at one o'clock, and don't send after the tray! Leave it there until I have finished writing."

"It is so untidy," murmured Bee.

"Well, who will see it?"

I am one of those who cleanse the outside of the desk and the bureau.

"Now, Billy, my precious, if you will keep away from Tattah all the morning, I will give you some candy directly after dinner. You will find it on the sconce just where I always put it," I said.

The sconce is where Billy and I put things for each other. He is only three and a half—"thrippence, ha'penny," he says if you ask him, but beguiling—oh, as beguiling as Cleopatra, or the serpent in the Garden of Eden, or—or as his mother!

Billy and I went to look at the sconce on my way up-stairs, and he called me back twice, saying, "Tattah, I want to kiss you," which I could but feel was something due to the promised candy on the sconce.

I sat down and began to write:

Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie at Canterbury.

Mrs. Jimmie, having been presented at the Court of St. James, always has more to do in London than she can attend to. As Jimmie hates functions with all the hatred of the American business man who looks upon gloves as for warmth only, this leaves Jimmie and me to roam around London at will. Mrs. Jimmie loathes the top of a "'bus" and absolutely draws the line at "The Cheshire Cheese." She lunches at Scott's and dines at the Savoy, while Jimmie and I are never so happy as in the grill-room at the Trocadero or in a hansom, threading the mazes of the City, bound for a plate of beefsteak pie at "The Cheshire Cheese" or on top of a 'bus on Saturday night, going through the Whitechapel region, creepy with horrors of "Jack the Ripper."

"What in all the world is a beefsteak pie?" she asked us, when she heard our unctuous exclamations.

"Why, it is a huge meat pie, made out of ham and larks and pigeons and beef, with a delicious gravy or sauce and a divine pastry. And you eat it in a little old kitchen with a sanded floor and deal tables, and where the bread is cut in chunks and where the steins are so thick that it is like drinking your beer over a stone wall, and where Dr. Samuel Johnson used to sit so often that the oil from his hair has made a lovely dirty spot on the wall, and they have it under glass with a tablet to his memory, so that if you like you can go and kneel down and worship before it, with your knees grinding into the sand of the floor," I said.

"Dear me," said Mrs. Jimmie, faintly. "Couldn't they have cleaned it off?"

At this juncture Bee came in with her hat on. "Excuse me for interrupting you," she said, with a far-away look in her eyes. "But do you mind if I copy that pink negligee? It hangs so much better than those I got in Paris. I won't take a moment. Just stand up and let me see. You needn't look so despairing, I am not going to stay. No, Billy, you stay there. Mother will be down directly. Oh, baby, why will you step on poor Tattah's gown? See, you hurt her. Didn't I tell you to stay with Norah? Six, eight, ten—don't, Billy. Don't touch any of Tattah's papers. Twelve—and four times seven—I think thirty yards of lace—Billy, take your engine off the piano. Oh, I forgot to tell you that Dick just telephoned, and wants us to make up a party for the theatre, with a supper afterward, next Monday. I telephoned to Freddie and asked him, and he is delighted, and so I told Dick that we would all come with pleasure. Now come, Billy, we must not interrupt Tattah. This is one of the days when she must not be disturbed."

She closed the door with the softness one uses in closing the door of a death-chamber, in order, I suppose, "not to disturb" me. I pulled myself together, and went on.

Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie at Canterbury.

"Clean it off? What sacrilege! Why, there are persons who would like to buy the whole wall, as Taffy tried to buy the wall on which Little Billee had drawn Trilby's foot," I exclaimed.

Mrs. Jimmie looked incredulous. She is so deliciously lacking in a sense of humour that in the frivolous society of Jimmie and me she is as much out of place as the Venus de Milo would be in vaudeville.

"We had such a delightful day at Stoke Pogis Monday, how would you like to spend Sunday at Canterbury?" she said. "It seems to me that it would be a most restful thing to wander through that lovely old cathedral on Sunday."

Before I could reply, Jimmie dug his hands down in his pockets, thrust his legs out in front of him, dropped his chin on his shirt-bosom and chuckled.

"What I like are cheerful excursions," he said. "On Monday we went to Stoke Pogis. It rained, and we had to wear overshoes, and we carried umbrellas. We lunched at a nasty little inn where we had to eat cold ham and cold mutton and cold beef, when we were wet and frozen to start with. What I wanted was a hot Scotch and a hot chop and hot potatoes—everything hot. Then—"

"Wait," I cried. "It was the inn where John Storm and Glory Quayle lunched that day when she led him such a dance."

"John Fiddlesticks!" said Jimmie. "As if that counted against that cold lunch! Then we arranged to go in the wagonette, but you got into such a hot argument with me—"

"I thought you said we didn't have anything hot," I murmured.

"Then we missed the wagonette, and spent an hour finding a cab. Then when we got there we were waylaid by an old woman in a little cottage, who showed us a register of tourists, and who artfully mentioned the sums they had given toward the restoration of Stoke Pogis, and you made me give more than the day's excursion cost. Then we went along a wet, bushy lane that muddied my trousers, and when we arrived at Gray's grave, you found the solemn yew-tree, and perched yourself on a wet, cold gravestone, and read Gray's Elegy aloud, while I held an umbrella over your heads and enjoyed myself. Now you want to put in Sunday at Canterbury, where, if it isn't more cheerful, you will probably have to bury me."

"Jimmie, you haven't any soul!" I said, in disgust.

Jimmie grunted.

A knock on the door.

"Please excuse me for interrupting you," said Mary, "but there are two reporters down-stairs, who want to know if they may photograph the front of the house for the Sunday Battle Ax."

"Yes, I don't care. Tell them to go ahead."

She shut the door and went away.

Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie at Canterbury.

"Oh, Jimmie," sighed his wife.

Another knock.

"Mary, what do you want?" I said, savagely.

She stuttered.

"And please, Missis, they want to know if you will just come and sit on the doorstep a moment with a book in your hand. I told them Mr. Jardine wasn't at home, so they said you would do!"

"No, I won't. Tell my sister to put on my hat and hold the book in front of her face and be photographed for me."

"Very well, Missis."

She went out, and again I numbered the page and essayed to write. But I could not. I was rapidly becoming mired. I stonily refused to leave my desk, but sat staring at the wall, trying to get the thread of my narrative, when—Mary again.

She was in tears.

"I am afraid to speak to you, and I am afraid not to speak to you," she stammered.

"Well, what is it?"

"Indeed, I try, Missis, but I can't seem to help you any. There are two young girls in the drawing-room, who want to know if Mr. Jardine will give his autograph to the Highland Alumnae Club. It has 472 members. They sent up their cards."

I simply moaned.

"That will be a whole hour's work! I can't do it now. (Mary knows I always write Aubrey's autographs for him!) Tell them to leave the cards and call for them to-morrow."

Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie at Canterbury.

"How in the world, Mrs. Jimmie, did you come to throw yourself away on Jimmie?" I said, with an impertinence which was only appreciated by Jimmie.

Mrs. Jimmie took me with infinite seriousness, and looked horrified at the sacrilege. She got up and crossed the room and sat down beside Jimmie on the sofa, without saying a word. Her tall, full figure towered above the gentlemanly slouch of Jimmie's boyish proportions, and her thus silently arraying herself on Jimmie's side as a wordless rebuke to my impertinence was so delicious that Jimmie gave me a solemn wink, as he said:

"Now she has only voiced the opinion of the world. Let us face the question once for all. Why did you marry me?"

Mrs. Jimmie coloured all over her creamy pale face. She looked in distress from me to Jimmie, divided between her desire to express in one burst of eloquence the fulness of her reasons for marrying the man she adored, and her reluctance to display emotion before me. She took everything with such edifying gravity. It never dawned on her that he was teasing her.

"Don't torment her so!" I said. "Mrs. Jimmie, I admire your taste, but I admire Jimmie's more."

"Thank you, dear," she said, seriously, but still with that soft blush on her cheeks. Then she added, quietly, "Jimmie never torments me."

"Mon Dieu," I said, under my breath, with a fierce glance at Jimmie. But he only shook his head, as one would who had not "fetched it" that time, but who meant to keep on trying.

Another knock. Mary again, with the mail. She was swallowing violently, and her eyes were full of tears. I took up the letters and tore them open.

Sixteen requests for autographs, only one enclosing a stamp. Twelve letters from young girls, telling Aubrey their stellar capabilities. Four requests for photographs. Some personal letters, and this choice effusion, which I copy verbatim et spellatim.

"DEAR SIR: Please tell me how you Study human natur do you travle extensively through close Social relations or do you Study phenology. You illustrate it So accrately that I would be pleased to know your method and if you don't think I am too cheeky, would be pleased to know your income. I remain yours with respect."

I gave a little shriek of delight, and rushed back to the Jimmies with renewed enthusiasm. This unknown man had inspired me afresh.

Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie at Canterbury.

But although Jimmie growls, there is no one in the world who is so excellent a travelling companion as he, for he is always ready for everything. You cannot suggest any jaunt too wild or too impossible for Jimmie not to bend his energies toward making it possible. The chief reason that Mrs. Jimmie likes me so much is because I admire Jimmie, and the reason that Jimmie likes me is because I adore Mrs. Jimmie.

So I was not at all surprised to find ourselves at Canterbury on Saturday afternoon, after a short run from London through one of the loveliest counties of England. Such bewitching shades of green. Such lovely little hills,—friendly, companionable little hills. I can't bear mountains. It is like trying to be intimate with queens and empresses. They overpower me.

Canterbury was enchanted ground to me. We found the very old cellar over which stood the Canterbury Inn. I could picture the whole thing to myself. I even reconciled Chaucer's spelling with the quaintness and curiousness of the old, old town.

We strolled up to St. Martin's Church, said to be the oldest church in England, and wandered around the churchyard, filled with glorious roses creeping everywhere over tombs so old that the lettering is illegible. When the sun set, we had the most beautiful view of Canterbury to be had anywhere, and one of the most beautiful in all England.

We sat down to a cold supper that night in a charming little inn with diamond-paned windows. But as Jimmie loves Paris cooking and would almost barter his chances of heaven for a smoking dish of sole a la Normande at the Cafe Marguery, he cast looks of deep aversion at a side table loaded with all sorts of cold and jellied meats. His choice of evils finally fell upon chicken, and to the purple-faced waiter with blue-white eyes, who asked what part of the fowl he would prefer, Jimmie said:

"The second joint."

The waiter frowned and went away. Presently he came back and asked Jimmie over again, and again Jimmie said, "The second joint."

He went away and came back with a fine cut of beef.

"What's this?" said Jimmie. "I ordered chicken."

"Yes, sir!" said the waiter, mopping his brow, "What part would you like, sir?"

"The second joint," said Jimmie, with ominous distinctness. "That is if English chickens grow any."

"Yes, sir, yes, sir," said the poor waiter.

He hurried away, and finally brought up the head waiter.

"What part of the fowl would you like, sir? This man did not understand your order."

Jimmie leaned back in his chair, and looked up at the waiters without speaking.

"How many parts are there to a chicken?" said Jimmie. "As your man does not seem to speak English, you name them over, and when you come to the one I want, I'll scream."

Both waiters shifted their weight to the other foot and looked embarrassed.

"I want the knee of the chicken," said Jimmie. "From the knee-cap to the thigh. That part which supports the fowl when it walks. Not the breast nor the neck nor the back nor yet the ankle, but the upper, the superior part of the leg. Do you understand?"

"The upper part of the leg? I beg pardon, sir, but the waiter understood that you wanted a cut from the second joint on that table, sir."

Jimmie simply looked at him.

"The English speak a dialect somewhat resembling the American language, Jimmie," I said, soothingly.

A knock at the door, and Bee appeared.

"Should Wives Work?" she said. "Answer that offhand! There is a reporter down-stairs for the Sunday Gorgon, who wants five hundred words from you which he is prepared to take down in shorthand. Should Wives Work?"

"Should wives work?" I cried, ferociously. "Would they if they got a chance? Oh, Bee, for heaven's sake, go down and tell him I'm out. Please, Bee."

"No, just give me a few ideas, and I'll go down and enlarge on them, and make up your five hundred words. Your opinion is so valuable. You don't know a single thing about it!"

I got rid of her by some diplomacy, and returned to the Jimmies.

Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie at Canterbury.

"Never mind her, dear," said Mrs. Jimmie. "Think what a beautiful, restful day we shall have to-morrow, wandering about Canterbury cathedral. I can't think of a more beautiful way to spend Sunday. London is simply dreadful on Sunday."

"London is simply dreadful at any time," said Jimmie. "Every restaurant, even the Savoy, closes at midnight. I got shut into the Criterion the other evening in the grill, and had to come out through the hotel, and they unlocked more doors and unclanked more chains than I've heard since I was the prisoner of Chillon. Talk about going wrong in London. You simply couldn't. Goodness is thrust upon you, if you are travelling. If you are a native and belong to the clubs—that's different. But the way they close things in England at the very time of all others that you want them to be open—"

Bee entered.

"Excuse me," she said, in a whisper. Bee thinks if she whispers it is not an interruption. "A committee from the Jewish Hospital would like to know if Aubrey will present a set of his books to the Hospital Library."

"If he does, that will be sixty dollars that he will have paid out this week, for his own books, for the privilege of giving them away. But as this is the last hospital in town that he has not contributed to, tell them yes, and then set the dog on them!" I said, savagely.

"You poor thing!" said Bee. "It's a shame the way people torment you."

Billy crowded past his mother, and climbed into my lap.

"Tell me a story, dear Tattah," said this born wheedler, patting my face with his little black paw.

"No, now Billy—" began Bee.

"Let him stay," I cried, casting down my pen. "It is so seldom that he cuddles that I'll sacrifice myself upon the altar of aunthood. Well, once upon a time, Billy, there was a dear little blue hen who stole away—sit still now! You've more legs than a centipede!—who stole away every day and went under the barn where it was so cool and shady, and laid a lovely little smooth, cream-coloured egg. Then when she had laid it, she was so proud that she could never help coming out and cackling at the top of her voice, 'Cut-cut-cut-ka-dah-cut!' And then the lady of the house would run out and say, 'Oh, there's that naughty little blue hen cackling over a new-laid egg which I did want so much to make an omelette, but I don't know where she has laid it. The naughty little blue hen!' So the poor lady would be obliged to use the red hen's eggs for the omelette, because the little blue hen laid hers under the barn.

"Well, after the little blue hen had laid six beautiful cream-coloured eggs, she began to sit on them day after day, covering them with her feathers, and tucking her lovely little blue wings down around the edges of her nest to keep the eggs warm, and day after day she sat and dreamed of six darling little yellow, fluffy chickens with brown wings and sparkling black eyes and dear little peepy voices, and she was so happy in thinking of her little children that she was as patient as possible, and never seemed to care that all the other hens and chickens were running about in the warm yellow sunshine and snapping up lively little shiny bugs with their yellow beaks.

"Well, after awhile, this dear little patient blue hen heard the funniest little tapping, tapping, tapping under her wings." Billy's eyes nearly bulged out of his head as he tapped the arm of the chair as I did. "And then she felt the most curious little fluttering under her wings—oh, Billy, what do you think this little blue hen felt fluttering under her wings?"

"A omelette!" said Billy, excitedly.

I finished the Jimmies as an anticlimax.

Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie at Canterbury.

It did not disturb Jimmie the next day to discover that Canterbury Cathedral is closed to visitors on Sunday.

We saw it on Monday.

After such a day it was no surprise to me to have Aubrey come home so dead tired that our strenuous evening was given up, and we all went out in Cary's new motor-car instead.



CHAPTER XII

A LETTER FROM JIMMIE

Jimmie's "bread-and-butter" letter gave me such joy that I copy it here, which shows how little I care for the conventions of life, inasmuch as I reproduce none of the others. Lady Mary's, Mrs. Jimmie's, Artie Beg's, Cary's, Sir Wemyss's, Captain Featherstone's, were all models of propriety, and, except that they are friends of mine, I would add, of stupidity. Bee's—Bee's showed me a dozen ways in which I might have improved my hospitality, and hers, at least, does not come under the head of the name. But Jimmie's! Here it is:

"Wretched creature and your wholly irreproachable husband:

"Ordinarily I would simply write to say that I had had a bully good time at the iniquitous place where you hang out, and by so doing—were I an ordinary man—would consider that I had paid my just debts and was quits with the world—and with you. But not being ordinary—on the contrary, and without undue pride, denominating myself as a most extraordinary, rare, and orchid-like male creature, I feel that the appended narrative, albeit I do not figure therein as Sir Galahad or King Arthur, is no more than your just due. I relinquish the steel helmet and holy grail adjuncts, and exploit myself to your ribald gaze and half-witted laughter just as I is.

"But first, let me rid myself of my obligations. I did enjoy every moment of my stay, and I recall, with a particular and somewhat pardonable pride, that you, Faith, on one occasion, took off my shoes,—a menial duty which I shall hereafter exact of you wherever we may be. Don't complain. It was yourself established the precedent, somewhat, if you will remember, against my will.

"Aubrey, as usual, was all that was kind.

"My duty now being done, I will proceed to narrate something which wild horses could not draw from me for anybody but you.

"To begin with, you have been told that we are building a house, and you know how interested I am in all its details. For example, a pile of bricks had been left on the third floor, which plainly belonged to the cellar. I had to come up on ladders, the hole for the stairways being left open. As the pulley for hoisting and lowering materials was still there, and an empty barrel stood invitingly near, I decided to assist Nature by lowering those bricks to their final resting-place. I therefore filled the barrel with them, and hooked the barrel on to the pulley.

"Now, Faith, as you have frequently remarked, I am thin, but just how thin I did not realize until I had yanked that barrel of bricks over this yawning aperture. The first thing that attracted my attention was the bumping of my spine against the roof—or ceiling, or whatever was highest in the house.

"I had presence of mind enough to kick at the barrel as I flew past it, so that it wouldn't dent my white waistcoat. The rope slid with violence through my hands, taking my palms with it. As I was pasted tranquilly against the skylight, and wondering how I was to get down, the problem was at once solved for me, but not to my satisfaction, by the bottom of the damned barrel giving out. Picture to yourself the consequences.

"The bricks being thus left on Mother Earth, I, with indescribable rapidity, having still hold of the rope, passed the staves in mid-air, as I hastily descended, lighting in a sitting posture on the pile of bricks. The sensation, Faith and Aubrey, is not pleasant.

"However, I possess a philosophic nature and a sense of humour. I realized that the worst was over, and that I was well out of my scrape. I therefore released the rope, and fell to examining my bruises. Will you believe it? Those wretched barrel-staves had no more consideration than to descend crushingly upon my unprotected skull, and to remove portions of my ears in so doing.

"I got out of there. I don't care for new houses, and carpenters may leave bricks on the piano hereafter for all of me.

"I have not told my wife. She is sensitive, and loves me. As neither of these aspersions describe you and Aubrey, I am impelled to state the incident to you, hoping that it may give your ribald selves a moment's diversion. I called on Lady Mary at the Cambridge, and told this to her, and she laughed until she cried. Then she said:

"'Oh, Mr. Jimmie, promise me that you will tell the whole thing to mamma—just as you have told it to me!'

"Imagine telling this to the Duchess of Strowther!

"Again, I repeat, I enjoyed myself on your ranch. I particularly enjoyed seeing Bee do the bucolic.

"Give the enclosed to Billy, and tell the old man to buy something with it to remember me by.

"And with kind remembrances to yourself and Aubrey, I am

"Your slave,

"JIMMIE."



CHAPTER XIII

THE BREAKING UP OF MARY

Prosperity disagrees with some people. But with Mary I have always thought it was jealousy.

As long as we had no one but her, and she practically ran the house and us, too, she was the same faithful, honest, sympathetic soul, who first won our young love at the Waldorf during our honeymoon, but after we came to Peach Orchard and needed old Amos for the horses, and a gardener, and two extra maids in the house, Mary's thrift took wings, and no Liande de Pougy or Otero could exceed her extravagance in ordering things she did not want, and never could use.

I noticed that the bills were becoming perfectly unbearable, and, never dreaming that our good, faithful Mary could be at fault,—she, who used to declare that she had walked ten blocks to find lettuce at eight cents a head instead of nine, and who never could be persuaded that her time at home was worth far more to me than that extra cent,—I spoke to the grocer and asked him what he meant by such prices.

"It isn't the prices, Mrs. Jardine—it's the quantity you have been ordering. Are you running a hotel?"

"No," I said. "Not that I know of."

"Well," he answered. "Look here; here's three gallons of olive-oil you've ordered in one week."

"Three gallons!" I gasped. "You mean three bottles."

"No, ma'am! Three gallons!"

"Who ordered it?"

"That there old woman of yours,—the one that cusses so."

"You mean Mary?" I asked, incredulously.

"I don't know what her name is, but I know her tongue when I hear it. A white-haired old lady with specs."

"That must be Mary," I mused.

"Well, 'm, she said Mr. Jardine ate salad twice a day, and needed lots of oil."

"So he does," I observed, drily, "but he doesn't bathe in it."

This pleasantry was quite lost on the grocer, for he hastened to agree with me, with a—

"Sure he doesn't," and a convincing wag of the head, as who should say, "Let no man accuse my friend, Mr. Jardine, of bathing in olive-oil, while I am about!"

It was very soothing.

"Well, just send it back, Mrs. Jardine," said he, presently, "it's in gallon cans and sealed."

I went home with wrath in my soul, but intending to modify my bill by at least three gallons of olive-oil. To my horror, however, I found that Mary had opened all three cans, and filled, perhaps, but one cruet from each.

Mary's face fell when I accusingly pointed this fact out to her.

"I forgot that I had any, Missis dear," she said, humbly. "I know you hate to run out of things."

"So I do," I said, severely, "but ten dollars' worth of olive-oil is rather too much to forget at a time, and there is absolutely no excuse for your opening all three of them."

"I know it, Missis dear."

I opened my mouth to say more, but her penitence, her humility, the sight of her old white head, moved me. "Suppose," I said to myself, "that, in addition to her extravagance, she was as impudent, as brazen, and as defiant as most servants? What would I do then?"

I turned away grateful for small mercies.

Soon after this, we began to take our meals out-of-doors. I had made a little lawn near the house, and surrounded it with a wire fencing, over which sweet peas were climbing. In the centre of this patch of grass was spread a rug made of green denim, just the colour of the grass, and on this stood a dinner-table of weathered oak. Here, in fine weather, we took all our meals. Breakfast was served anywhere from six to ten, and by looking from your bedroom windows, you might see a man in white flannels, smoking a cigarette and reading the morning paper over coffee or rolls or a dish of strawberries on thin green leaves.

The women—until they had once tried the open-air breakfast—always preferred their coffee in their rooms. But, if I do say it myself, Peach Orchard at six o'clock in the morning is the most beautiful spot on earth. (The Angel has just thoughtfully observed that for me that is a very moderate statement.)

One day while Lady Mary and Sir Wemyss were with us, I made a lobster salad for them. I always use nasturtium stems in the mayonnaise for a lobster, and mix the blossoms in for garnishing and to serve it with.

This suggested the colour scheme of yellow, so I decorated entirely with nasturtiums, and, beginning with grapefruit, I planned a yellow luncheon throughout.

The Angel had seen me fussing with things in the servants' dining-room, and knew that I had made a salad. I simply mention this to show why I continue to call him the Angel, though the honeymoon has waxed and waned many, many times.

Now I admit that I am forgetful. I admit that I am absent-minded, and I furthermore beg to state that with the Jimmies and the Beguelins and Bee tearing subjects for conversation into mental rags and tatters for the admiration and astonishment of the Lombards, I think I might be excused for not noticing that Mary forgot the salad. She forgot it as completely as if salad had never dawned upon the culinary horizon. The cook, not having made it, naturally dismissed it from her mind, but Mary had helped me make it. Mary put it in the ice-box with her own hands. Mary knew how I had worked over it. Drat her!

When all was over, the Angel strolled over to me and murmured:

"I thought you were making that salad for luncheon, dear."

I sprang from my chair as if shot, and stared at him wildly. He regarded me with alarm.

"So I was!" I shrieked, in a whisper. I wrung my hands, and so great was my anguish that tears came into my eyes.

"There! There, dearie!" said Aubrey, kindly. "Don't mind, little girl! It would have been too much with all the rest of your lovely luncheon. It will go much better tonight."

"You are an angel," I said, brokenly, "but I'll feel a little easier in my mind after I have killed Mary."

It was hot, but I ran all the way to the house. I found Mary. The light of battle was in my eye, and she quailed before I spoke.

"Where was that lobster salad?" I demanded.

She turned pale, and sank into a chair. I simply stood glaring at her. She peeked through her fingers to see if I were relenting as usual, but as I still looked blood-thirsty, she began to cry. She covered her head with her apron, and rocked herself back and forth.

"I forgot it, Missis dear! Kick me if you want to. I'll not say I don't deserve it, but since I burst me stomach I can't remember anything!"

"Since you what?" I gasped, in horror.

Mary took down her apron in triumph, and looked as important as though she had a funeral to go to.

"Didn't you know, Missis? In my mother's last sickness—God rest her soul!—I had to lift her every day, and I burst me stomach. The doctor said so. That's why I forget things!"

I stood staring at her. She was nodding her head, and smoothing her apron over her knees with a look of the greatest complacency.

I thought of many, many things to say. And in several languages. But all of them put together would have been inadequate, so, without one word, I turned and walked slowly and thoughtfully away.

That did not phase Mary in the least. She had looked for voluble and valuable sympathy—such as generally pours from me on the slightest provocation. She was so disappointed that she grew ugly and broke a soap-dish.

"Aubrey," I said to the Angel, "how is your memory connected with your stomach?"

"Very nearly," he answered, pleasantly. "My stomach reminds me of many things,—when it's time to eat, and when it's time to drink."

"So then, if anything happened to that reminder, you might forget even to get dinner if you were a cook, or to serve it if you were a butler?"

"Certainly."

"I see," I answered, thoughtfully.

"If I might beg to inquire the wherefore of this thirst for information—" hazarded the Angel, politely.

"Oh, nothing much. Only Mary says she has burst her stomach, and that's why she forgets everything."

Fortunately, Aubrey was sitting in his Morris chair. If he had flung himself about in that manner on a bench, he would have broken his back.

"Mary," said Aubrey, when he could speak, "ought to go in a book."

"Mary," I said, with equal emphasis, "ought to go into an asylum."

It was not long after that that old Katie, the cook, came up-stairs, and beckoned me from the room.

"You said, Mrs. Jardine, that you'd never seen butter made. Now I've got the first churning from the Guernsey cow in the churn, and if you would like to see it—"

She never finished the sentence, for I rushed past her so that she had to follow me into the milk-room. (Bee wanted me to call it "the dairy.")

I sat by while Katie churned and told stories. Then while she was turning it out, and I was raving over the colour of it, I heard a suspicious sniffing behind me, and behold, there was Mary, with her apron to her eyes, murmuring, brokenly, "My poor dear mother! Oh, my poor dear mother!"

Seeing that she had attracted my attention, she walked away, stumbling over the threshold to emphasize her grief.

"What's the matter with Mary, Mrs. Jardine?" asked old Katie, wonderingly.

"Her mother used to churn, she told me, and I suppose it brings it all back to her to see you churn," I said, with as straight a face as I could muster.

"Dear me!" said Katie, in high disgust. "I had a mother and she used to churn, but it doesn't turn me into salt water every time I hear the dasher going!"

Katie is a shrewd woman, so I said nothing in answer to that. Finally Katie lifted her chin—a way she had—and added:

"I'm thinking it sits bad on her mind to see you in here with me, instead of with her!"

As I still said nothing, she apparently repented herself, for she said, a moment later:

"But Mary was mighty fond of her old father and mother. She keeps mementoes of them ahl over the place. She has now what she calls his Polean pitcher—"

"His what?"

"Shure I don't know! But she says it is. It's got a man on the outside, and you pours out of his three-cornered hat."

"Oh, yes," I said. "I remember now. What did you say she called it?"

"There it is now, on the shelf above your head. But how it got there, I don't know. And Mary would be throwing fits if she saw it."

"Why?"

"Because she says her father used to send her every night, when she was a little girl, to get his Polean pitcher filled with beer. She says she minds him every time she looks at it—Gahd rest his soul."

I turned and looked at the little squat figure of Napoleon. It was the pitcher the little man had given Mary for getting our trade for him, when we were first married.

"She cried once when I put some cream in it to make pot-cheese," said Katie. "And she emptied it and washed it and kissed it; then she stood it on th' shelf with her picture of the Pope that you gave her."

Just then Mary, as if suspecting something, appeared at the door. She looked suspiciously from one to the other.

"I was just afther telling the Missis, Mary, how careful you are of the Polean pitcher you used to rush the growler with for your poor dear father," said Katie, with a shy grin that was gone before we fairly saw it.

Mary turned away without a word. She never spoke to me on the subject, nor I to her.

The next day a gipsy fortune-teller came to Peach Orchard, and told the fortunes of all the servants. She predicted a rich husband for Katie, and a fit of sickness for Mary. I think she could not have pleased each better.

That night we were sitting in the Angel's porch-study, when the most dreadful howls and groans began to emanate from the kitchen. We all hurried to the scene, and there, prone upon the floor, lay Mary, weeping and twitching herself and moaning that she was going to die.

"It's the fortune-teller," said Katie in my ear. But Aubrey heard.

"Get up, Mary!" he said, sternly. (I did not know the Angel could be so stern.)

To the surprise of all of us, Mary obediently scrambled to her feet.

"Now go to your room, and go properly to bed. Katie will help you. Then I shall telephone for the doctor."

Mary began to look frightened.

"Don't send for the doctor, Boss dear," she pleaded. "I'll be better soon. These attacks don't mean anything."

"The gipsy predicted that you were going to have a fit of sickness, and I believe it has come," said Aubrey, seriously. "Take her to bed quickly, Katie. I don't want her to die in the kitchen."

The two old women stumbled up the back stairway together.

"Oh, Aubrey, what is it?" I whispered.

"It is the breaking up of Mary," said the Angel when we were alone. "It has been going on for some time. Either jealousy, or old age, or imagination, or incipient insanity has seized our poor old servant-friend, and well-nigh wrecked her. I have tried various remedies, but all have failed. I didn't want to bother you with it before, but the fact is, Faith dear, Mary must go. She has outlived her usefulness with us."

"I've been afraid of it for some time," I answered. "But it seems too bad. She has been with us through some strenuous times, Aubrey."

"I know, dear, and I have no idea of turning the old creature adrift. The last time I was in town I spoke to Doctor North and arranged to send Mary to his sanatorium for a month."

"You are good, Aubrey."

Aubrey smoked in silence for a few moments.

"Yes, Mary has been with us through deep waters and hard fights, and never has she flinched. Perhaps it is her nature. Perhaps she just can't stand the lameness of prosperity."

In a day or two we sent Mary to Doctor North's sanatorium, a badly scared and deeply repentant old woman, and Aubrey wired Doctor North:

"Is this a genuine case, or is she faking?"

The answer came back:

"Faking."

Poor Mary! She escaped from the sanatorium on the third day. But we never saw her again, and though we often write to her and send her things, she never answers.

I think it was the "Polean pitcher."



CHAPTER XIV

AND THEY LIVED HAPPY EVER AFTER

End of the story—end of the chapter—end of the book!

And what could be more satisfactory than the ending of the old fairy-tales,—"and so they were married, and lived happy ever after"? Not for them the strenuous adjustment of temper and temperament, of extravagance and poverty, with the divorce court at the end of the second year. In the blessed tales of one's childhood, they married and lived happily.

Ay, and for ever after!

It is a long time,—but I look forward to it without fear, yea, even with gladness. Not that I would so dare, did it depend upon my temper, my moods, my days of ailing and depression, but ah, I depend upon my husband's. He has his days of ailing and depression, but I never know of them until they are past. He has his illnesses, but he conceals them from me. If things go wrong, his face only grows brighter for my eyes to rest upon, nor is he ever too busy or too preoccupied to stop his work and soothe my nervous fears. Disagreeable people are not allowed to annoy me. Disagreeable letters are held over until their sting has grown less. Disagreeable remarks are robbed of their venom by his kindly interpretation. He stands as a bulwark between me and the world.

"And so they were married, and lived happily ever after."

To live happily means for one or the other to ignore self. Aubrey is the epitome of selflessness. So that I claim no credit for the noiseless wheels of our domestic machinery, for over trifles I am inclined to go up in a puff of vapour and blue smoke, and I love my own way.

But somehow, after a year or two of seeing Aubrey give his way up to mine, without a frown or a word of remonstrance, and with such a look of unfathomable love in his wonderful eyes, I rather lost the taste for demanding my own way. Even when I got it some of its flavour had disappeared. Was I contrary? I do not know. I only knew that I began to pretend—I had to pretend, or Aubrey would not have allowed it—to want the things that he wanted, and to want them done in the way he liked. And with such a rich reward! Do all sacrifices made for love carry with them such immediate and rich rewards, I wonder? Can I ever forget the Angel's face when it dawned upon him that I was giving up my way for his? He realized it first as he was standing in front of me, filling his pipe. I saw it come first into his eyes, then tremble upon his sensitive lips, then he threw aside his precious pipe and knelt down beside my chair, and gathered me all up in his arms, and hid his face in my shoulder. What he said I shall never tell to any one, but I shall remember it in my grave, and it will be surging in my ears in the other world. Is sacrifice hard for one you love?

"And so they were married, and lived happily ever after."

That, in the old-fashioned story, was the end of everything. Married love evidently took no hold upon the youthful imagination, or upon that of our little selves. We wanted all the anguish to come to the unwed, and the happiness and dulness of unchanging bliss to descend upon the bridal pair.

Then somebody discovered that marriage was not the end; it was only the beginning, and somebody acted on this wonderful discovery and began to tell the varying fortunes of those stupid, cut and dried, buried and laid away persons, the bride and groom, whom we had hitherto parted with at the church door. It was as if the carriage door slammed upon their happiness, and ended their career. Their ultimate fate was for ever settled. They died to the world with the hurling of the rice, and vanished from the sight of readers with the casting of the old shoe.

Then we learned that life began with marriage. Has our taste changed, or have we only awakened to the truth?

Ask any woman who is happily married, and see if she says she can ever remember anything before she became a wife. I remember that certain things did happen before I met Aubrey, but I recall them as I sometimes try to tell him a dream which is indistinct and somewhat unreal.

But that is because I have found, out of all the world, my mate.

How does any one dare to marry? As I look around me, at the mistakes other women have made, I wonder that I had the courage to marry even the Angel. For supposing he hadn't been the right man! I'd have been dead by this time, so there's that comfort anyway.

But he was!

To those who know the Angel, I need say no more. And even to those who never have seen him, and never will know him except in this chronicle, the wonder of it can never cease, for so few women, out of all the men in the universe, find their mates, as I have found mine.

Men propose and women marry, but the misfits are palpable all through life to others, and frequently to themselves. They look back and wonder, when it is too late, how they ever imagined that they could live together without wanting to murder each other daily. Yet they console themselves with the thought that theirs is only an ordinary marriage, containing no more jarring notes than most. Yet if they ever stopped to think what might have been—if they dared look into the inner chamber where hope lies dead, they would wonder that their misery was not so stamped upon their faces that people would turn to look at them in the street and stare at the hopelessness of their broken lives. Do the unhappily married ever dare pause to think of the real mate of each, lost somewhere in the wide world, perhaps going about, ever seeking, seeking, perhaps greatly mismated and equally unhappy?

"Two shall be born the whole wide world apart And each in different tongues and have no thought Each of the other's being and no heed; And these, o'er unknown seas to unknown lands Shall cross, escaping wreck, defying death And all unconsciously shape every act And send each wandering step to this one end That, one day, out of darkness they shall meet And read life's meaning in each other's eyes.

"And two shall walk some narrow way of life So nearly side by side, that should one turn Ever so little space to left or right They needs must stand acknowledged face to face. And yet, with wistful eyes that never meet, With groping hands that never clasp, and lips Calling in vain to ears that never hear They seek each other all their weary days And die unsatisfied—and this is Fate!"

When I realize the beautiful and terrible truth of these two verses, I grow dumb with terror, and turn filled to overflowing with gratitude that, no matter what others may have done or will do; in spite of sad books and mournful plays; in spite of winter winds and illness and sorrow and the bitter disappointment of hope deferred; in spite of bodily ills and heart sickness and the times when even the strongest soul faints by the roadside, no matter what betide, I can always turn my face homeward, and there will be Aubrey.

THE END