Recalled to his true self for the moment, Jarley endeavored to get down to work, but as he made the endeavor he became conscious that a revolving chair has very pleasing qualities to one who is fond of twirling. Round and round he twirled, and as he twirled he grabbed up his cane, and in a moment realized that he was playing that he was on a merry-go-round, and trying to secure a renewal of his right to ride by catching imaginary rings on the end of his stick. This operation consumed quite five minutes more of his time, and was accompanied by such a vast number of "Hoop-las" that Mr. Baker came himself to see what was the cause of the unseemly racket. Fortunately for Jarley, just as his partner reached the doorway, the chair had reached the limit of its twirling capacity, and having been unscrewed as far as it could be, toppled over on to the floor, with Jarley underneath. "What in the world does this mean, Jarley?" said Mr. Baker, severely, as he assisted his fallen partner to rise.

"My chair has come apart," laughed Jarley, getting red in the face.

"That's the great trouble with that kind of chair," said Mr. Baker. "You don't seem to mind the mishap very much."

"Oh no," said Jarley, gritting his teeth in his determination not to follow his mad impulse to jump on Mr. Baker's shoulders and clamor for a picky-back ride. "No; I don't mind little things like that much."

Here he stood on his right leg, as he had done before breakfast, and began to hop.

"Hurt your foot?" queried Mr. Baker.

Jarley seized at the suggestion with all the despairing vigor of a drowning man clutching at a rope.

"Yes; a little, but not enough to mention," he said; whereupon, much to his relief, Mr. Baker turned away and went back to his own room.

"This will never do," Jarley moaned to himself when his partner had gone. "If one of my clients should come in—"

Then he stopped and grinned like a mischievous lad. He had caught sight of an old water-meter that had been used as an exhibit in a case he had once tried against the city in behalf of an inventor, who had been led to believe that the water board would adopt his patent and compel every householder to buy one for the registration of water consumed. What fun it would be to take that apart, he thought, and thinking thus was enough to set him about the task. He locked his door, moved the strange-looking contrivance out into the middle of the room, and tried to unscrew the top of it with his eraser. The delicate blade of this improvised screw-driver snapped off in an instant, whereupon Jarley tried the scissors, with similar results. After a half-hour of this he gave up the idea of taking the meter apart, but his soul immediately became possessed of another idea, which was to see if it worked. The pursuit of this brought him the most deliriously joyful sensations; and for an hour he devoted himself to filling the machine up with water drawn from a faucet at one side of his room, and poured into the meter from a drinking-glass. It was not until the hour was up that he observed that the water after passing through the meter came out upon the carpet, and it is probable that even then he would not have noticed it had not the tenants below sent up to inquire if there was not something wrong with the water-pipes overhead.

When Jarley realized what had happened he wisely determined to give up business for the day. While the spirit of Jack was within him, the business he might transact was not likely to prove of value to himself or to any one else. So he put on his hat and coat, called a cab, and started for home. His experiences in the cab were quite of a kind with the experiences of the morning, and attended with no little personal danger. He would lean against the cab door and put his arm out and try to touch horse-cars as they passed. Once or twice he nearly had his head knocked off by sticking it out of the windows; but by some happy chance he got interested in the cab curtains and the inviting little strings, which, when pulled, made them fly up with a snap. Absorbed in this occupation, he drove on, and gave up all such dangerous experiments as playing tag with horse-cars and trucks, and arrived at home in time for luncheon unhurt.

Mrs. Jarley was somewhat alarmed at the unexpected return of Mr. Jarley, but was content with his explanation that while he never felt better in his life, he deemed it best to return and attend to his work in the privacy of his own home. For the proper accomplishment of this work he said that he thought he would use Jack's nursery on the attic floor, where he could be quiet, and he asked as an especial favor that he might be left alone with Jack for the balance of the day.

He had made up his mind that his experiment, while a success in one way, were not what he expected in another way. He had found Jack's energy very energetic indeed, but not suited for adult use, and he even found himself wondering why he had not thought of that before. However, the thing to do now was to get rid of that spirit as soon as possible. If it had become permanently a part of him, he had reached his second childhood, which for a man of thirty-five is a disturbing thought. So disturbing was it that Jarley resolved upon a heroic measure to cure himself. Similia similibus struck him as being the only possible cure, and so, regardless of the possible consequences to his physical being, he "permitted" Jack to be with him up-stairs "while he worked," as he put it to Mrs. Jarley, though all others were forbidden to approach.

The result was as he had foreseen. Jack's energy in Jack, pure and unadulterated, had very little trouble in wearing out the diluted energy which his father had acquired from his superfluous stores, and night coming on found Jarley, after a three hours' steady circus with his son, in his normal condition mentally. But physically! What a poor wreck of a human system was his when the last bit of the boyish spirit was consumed! Had he worked at brick-laying for a week without rest Jarley could not have been more prostrated physically. But he was happy. His tests had proved that he could do certain things, but the results he had expected as to the value of those things were not what he had hoped for. At any rate, his experiment gave him greater sympathy with his boy than he had ever had before, and they have become great chums. The greatest disappointment of the whole affair is Jack's, who wonders why it is that he and his father have no more afternoon acrobatics such as they had in the play-room that day, but until he is a good many years older his father cannot tell him, for the boy could not in the present stage of his intellectual development understand him if he tried.

As for Mr. Baker and the people at the office, they were not at all astonished to hear the next day that Jarley was laid up, and would probably, not appear at the office again for a week, although they were a little surprised when they learned that his trouble was rheumatism, and not softening of the brain.



JARLEY'S THANKSGIVING

Jarley was in a blue mood the night before Thanksgiving. Things hadn't gone quite to suit him during the year. He had lost two of his most profitable clients—men upon whom for two years previously he had been able to count for a steady income. It is true that he had lost them by winning their respective suits, and had made two strong friends by so doing; but, as he once put it to Mrs. Jarley, the worst position a man could possibly get himself into was that of one who is long on friends and short on income. He did not underestimate the value of friends, but he didn't want too many of them; because beyond a certain number they became luxuries rather than necessities, and his financial condition was such that he could not afford luxuries.

"I love them all," he said, "but I haven't money enough to entertain a quarter of them. The last time Billie Hicks was up here he smoked sixteen Invincible cigars. Now, I am very fond of Billie Hicks, but with cigars at twenty cents apiece I can't afford him more than one Sunday in a year. He's getting a little cold because I haven't asked him up since."

"Why don't you buy cheaper cigars? At our grocery store they have some very nice looking ones at two for five cents," suggested Mrs. Jarley.

"I don't wish to have to move out of the house," said Jarley.

Mrs. Jarley failed to see the connection.

"Very likely you don't," said Jarley; "but if I smoked one of your two-and-a-half-cent grocery cigars in this house, you'd see the point in a minute. If you will get me a yard of cotton cloth, and let me put it in the furnace fire, you'll get a fair idea of the kind of atmosphere we'd be breathing if I allowed a cigar like that to be lit within fifty feet of the front door."

"But you can get a good cigar for ten cents, can't you?" Mrs. Jarley asked.

"Yes—very good," assented Jarley; "but Billie would probably smoke thirty-two of those, and carry three or four away with him in his pockets. I'd lose even more that way. It's a singular thing about friends. They have some conscience about Invincible cigars, but they'll take others by the handful."

Jarley was also somewhat blue upon this occasion because none of his inventions—the little things he thought out in his leisure moments, and out of some of which he had hoped to gain a deal of profit—had been successful. The public had refused to place any confidence whatsoever in his patent reversible spats, which, when turned inside out, could be made useful as galoches; and the beaux of New York actually rejected with scorn the celluloid chrysanthemum, which he had hoped would become a popular boutonniere because of its durability and cheapness. An impecunious young man with care could make one fifteen-cent chrysanthemum of the Jarley order last through a whole season, and it could be colored to suit the wearer's taste with the ordinary paint-boxes that children so delight in; but in spite of this the celluloid chrysanthemum was a distinct failure, and Jarley had had his trouble for his pains, to say nothing of the cost of the model. But worst of all the failures, because of the prospective losses its failure entailed, was the Jarley safety lightning razor. Its failure was not due to any lack of merit, for it certainly possessed much that was ingenious and commendable. The affair was not different in principle from a lawn-mower. Six little sharp blades set on a cylinder would revolve rapidly as the pretty machine was pushed up and down the cheek of the person shaving, and leave the face of that person as smooth as a piece of velvet; but in announcing it to the world its inventor had made the unfortunate statement that a child could use it with impunity, and some would-be smart person on a comic paper took it up and wrote an undeniably clever article on the futility of inventing a razor for children. The consequence was that the safety razor was laughed out of existence, and the additions to his residence which Jarley was going to pay for out of the proceeds had to be abandoned.

"I don't like a blue funk," he said, "and generally I can find something to be thankful for at this season; but I'm blest if this year, beyond the fact that we're all alive, I can see any cause for celebrating my thankfulness. I haven't enough of it to last ten minutes, much less a day, what with the positive failure of my inventions, the loss of income from what I once considered safe investments that have gone to the wall, and the reduction of my professional earnings, not to mention the fact that almost at the beginning of my professional year I am as tired physically and mentally as I ought to be at the finish."

"Oh, well, say you are thankful, anyhow," suggested Mrs. Jarley. "You will convince others that you are, and maybe, if you say it often enough, you will convince yourself of the fact."

"Thanks," said Jarley. "It's possibly a good suggestion, but I don't believe in pretending to be what I'm not. It might convince me that I am thankful for something, but I don't want to be convinced when I know I'm not."

Which shows, I think, how very blue Jarley was.

"There's one thing," he added, with a sigh of relief at the thought—"I'll have a day of rest to-morrow anyhow. I've bought Jack a football, and he can take it out on the tennis-court and play with it all day, with intervals for meals."

"Why did you do that?" asked Mrs. Jarley, with a gesture not so much of indignation as of disapproval. "I think football is such a brutal game; and if Jack has a football at his present age, when he's in college he'll want to play. I don't want to have my boy wearing his hair like a Comanche Indian, and coming home with broken ribs and dislocated limbs."

"We'll let the broken ribs of 1904 and the wig of the same period suffice for the evils of that year," retorted Jarley. "It's the present I'm looking after, not the future ten or twelve years removed. If Jack hasn't that football to-morrow he'll have me, and I've no desire in the present condition of my physical well-being to be used by him as a plaything. Deprived of the leathern ball, he might use me as a football instead, and I must rest. That's all there is about it. Besides, if he becomes an aspirant for football honors now it will be a good thing for him. He'll take care of himself and try to improve his physique if he once gets the notion in his head that he wants to go on a university eleven. I want my boy to learn to be a man, and the football ambition is likely to be a very useful aid in that direction. He knits reins very well with a spool and a pin now, and I think it's time he graduated in that art, unless the woman of the future, of whom we hear so much, is to take man's place to such an extent that the man will have to take up woman's work. If I thought the masculine tendency of our present-day girls was likely to go much further, I might consent to the effemination of Jack simply to secure his comfort as a married man of the future; but I don't think that, and in consequence Jack is going to be brought up as a boy, and not as a girl. The football goes."

This remark was another indication of Jarley's depression. He rarely combated Mrs. Jarley's ideas, and when he did, and with a certain air of irritation, it was invariably a sign of his low mental state.

"When you say that the football goes, do you mean that it stays?" queried Mrs. Jarley, who was a little tired herself, and could not, therefore, resist the temptation to indulge in a bit of innocent repartee.

"I do," said Jarley, shortly. "Goes is sometimes a synonym for stays. When I feel stronger I may invent a new language, which will have fewer absurdities than English as she is spoke."

And with this Jarley went to bed, and slept the sleep of the just man who is truly weary.

If he had foreseen the result of his football investment it is doubtful if his sleep would have been so tranquil—unless, perchance, he were fashioned after that rare pattern of mankind, Louis XVI. of France, who called for his six or seven course dinner with a mob of howling, bloodthirsty Parisians in his antechamber, and who on the eve of his execution slept well, despite his knowledge that within fifteen hours his head would in all probability be lopped off by the guillotine to gratify the lust for blood which was the chief characteristic of the promoters of the first French Republic.

At six on the morning of Thanksgiving Day Jarley was sleeping peacefully, but the youthful Jack was not. Thanksgiving Day was not a holiday in his eyes, but a day set apart for work, thanks to his father's indulgence in providing him with a football. He had gone to bed the night before with the ball hugged tightly to his breast; and along about ten o'clock, when Jarley himself had gone into the nursery to put that treasured good-night kiss upon the forehead of his sleeping boy, tired as he was and blue as he was, he had difficulty in repressing the laughter that manifested itself within him, for Jack lay prone, face upward, with the football under the small of his back, and seemingly as comfortable as though he were resting upon eider-down.

"That is certainly a characteristic football attitude," Jarley said, when Mrs. Jarley had come to see what had caused her husband's chuckle.

"Yes—and so good for the spine!" returned Mrs. Jarley.

The attitude was changed, but the ball was left where Jack would see it the first thing on awaking in the morning. At six, as I have said, Jarley was sleeping peacefully, but Jack was not. He had opened his eyes some minutes before, and on catching sight of his treasured football he began to grin. The grin grew wider and wider, until apparently it got too wide for the bed, and the boy leaped out of his couch upon the floor. The first thing he did was to pat the ball gently but firmly, very much as a kitten manifests its interest in a ball of yarn. Then his attentions to his new plaything grew more pronounced and vigorous, and within fifteen minutes it had been chased out of the nursery into the parental bedchamber. Still Jarley slept. Mrs. Jarley was merely half asleep. She tried to tell Jack to be quiet; but she was not quite wide awake enough to do so as forcibly as was necessary, and the result was that instead of abating his ardor, Jack plunged into his sport more vigorously than ever.

And then Jarley was awakened—and what an awakening it was! Not one of those peaceful comings-to that betoken the tranquil mind after a good rest, but a return to consciousness with every warlike tendency in his being aroused to the highest pitch. Jack had passed the ball with considerable momentum on to the mantel-piece, which sent it backward on the rebound to no less a feature than the nose of the slumbering Jarley.

"What the deuce was that?" cried Jarley, sitting up straight in bed. He had forgotten all about the football, and to his suddenly restored consciousness it seemed as if the ceiling must have fallen. Then he rubbed his nose, which still ached from the force of the impact between itself and the ball.

"It was the ball did it, papa," said Jack, meekly. "'Twasn't me."

In an instant Jarley was on the floor; and Jack, scenting trouble, incontinently fled. The parent was angry from the top of his head to the soles of his feet, but as the soles of his feet touched the floor his anger abated. After all, Jack hadn't meant to hurt him, and having witnessed several games of football, he knew how innately perverse an oval-shaped affair like the ball itself could be. Furthermore, there was Mrs. Jarley, who had disapproved of his purchase from the outset. If he wreaked vengeance upon poor little Jack for his unwitting offence, Jarley knew that he would in a measure weaken his position in the argument of the night before. So, instead of chastising Jack, as he really felt inclined to do, he picked up the ball, and repairing to the nursery, summoned the boy to him in his sweetest tones.

"Never mind, old chap," he said, as Jack appeared before him. "I know you didn't mean it; but you must play in here until it is time for you to go out. Papa is very sleepy, and you disturb him."

"All right," said Jack. "I'll play in here. I forgot."

Then Jarley patted Jack on the head, rubbed his nose again dubiously, for it still smarted from the effects of the blow it had sustained, and retired to his bed once more. If he fondly hoped to sleep again, he soon found that his hope was based upon a most shifting foundation, for the whoops and cries and noises of all sorts, vocal and otherwise, that emanated from the next room destroyed all possibility of his doing anything of the sort. At first the very evident enjoyment of his son and heir, as Jarley listened to his goings-on in the nursery, amused him more or less; but his quiet smile soon turned to one of blank dismay when he heard a thunderous roar from Jack, followed by a crash of glass. Again springing from his bed, Jarley rushed into the nursery.

"Well, what's happened now?" he asked.

Jack's under lip curved in the manner which betokens tears ready to be shed.

"Nun-nothing," he sobbed. "I was just k-kicking a goal, and that picture got in the way."

Jarley looked for the picture that had got in the way, and at once perceived that it would never get in the way again, since it was irretrievably ruined. However, he was not overcome by wrath over this incident, because the picture was not of any particular value. It was only a highly colored print of three cats in a basket, which had come with a Sunday newspaper, and had been cheaply framed and hung up in the nursery because Jack had so willed. On principle Jarley had to show a certain amount of displeasure over the accident, and he did as well as he could under the circumstances, and retired.

For a while Jack played quietly enough, and Jarley was just about dozing off into that delicious forty winks prior to getting up when shrieks from the second Jarley boy came from the nursery. This time Mrs. Jarley, with one or two expressions of natural impatience, deemed it her duty to interfere. Jarley, she reasoned, had a perfect right to spoil Jack if he pleased, but he had no right to permit Jack to do bodily injury to Tommy; and as Tommy was making the house echo and re-echo with his wails, she deemed it her duty to take a hand. Jarley meanwhile pretended to sleep. He was as wide awake as he ever was; but the atmosphere was not full of warmth, and upon this occasion, as well as upon many others, his conscience permitted him to overlook the shortcomings of his elder son, and to assume a somnolence which, while it was not real, certainly did conduce to the maintenance of his personal comfort. Mrs. Jarley, therefore, rose up in her wrath. It was merely a motherly wrath, however, and those of us who have had mothers will at once realize what that wrath amounted to. She repaired immediately to the nursery, and without knowing anything of the technical terms of the noble game of football, instinctively realized that Jack and Tommy were having a "scrimmage." That is to say, she was confronted with a structure made up as follows: basement, the ball; first story, Tommy, with his small and tender stomach placed directly over the ball; second story and roof, Jack, lying stomach upward and wiggling, his back accurately registered on Tommy's back, to the detriment and pain of Tommy.

"Get up, Jack!" Mrs. Jarley cried. "What on earth are you trying to do to Tommy? Do you want to kill him?"

"Nome," Jack replied, innocently. "He wanted to play football, and I'm letting him. He's Harvard and I'm Yale."

A smothered laugh from the adjoining room showed that Jarley was not so soundly sleeping that he could not hear what was going on. Tommy meanwhile continued to wail.

"Well, get up,—right away!" cried Mrs. Jarley. "I sha'n't have you abusing Tommy this way."

"Ain't abusin' him," retorted Jack, rising. "I was 'commodatin' him. He wanted to play. When I don't let him play I get scolded, and when I do let him I'm scolded. 'Pears to me you don't want me to do anything."

Thus Thanksgiving Day began, not altogether well, but equanimity was soon restored all around, and everything might have run smoothly from that time on had not a cold drizzling rain set in about breakfast-time. It was clearly to be an in-door day. And what a day it was!

At ten o'clock the football came into play again.

At eleven the score stood: one clock knocked off the mantel-piece in the library; three chandelier globes broken to bits; one plaster Barye bear destroyed by a low kick from the parlor floor; Tommy with his nose very nearly out of joint, thanks to a flying wedge represented by Jack; Mrs. Jarley's amiability in peril, and Jarley's irritability well developed.

At twelve the ball was confiscated, but restored at twelve-five for the sake of peace and quiet.

At one, dinner was served and eaten in moody silence, Jack having inadvertently punted the ball through the pantry, grazing the chignon of the waitress, and landing in the mayonnaise. It was not a happy dinner, and Jarley began to wish either that he had never been born or that all footballs were in Ballyhack, wherever that might be.

"If it would only clear off!" he moaned. "That boy needs a playground as big as the State of Texas anyhow, and here we are cooped up in the house, with a football added."

"We'll have to take it away from him," said Mrs. Jarley, "or else you'll have to take Jack up into the attic and play with him. I can't have everything in the house smashed."

"We'll compromise on Jack's going to the attic. I have no desire to play football," returned Jarley; and this was the plan agreed upon. It would have been a good plan if Jarley had expended some of his inventive genius upon some such game as football solitaire, and instructed Jack therein beforehand; but this he had not done, and the result was that at three o'clock Jarley found himself in the attic involved in a furious game, in which he represented variously Harvard, the goal, the goal-posts, the referee, and acting with too great frequency as understudy for the ball. What he was not, Jack was, and the worst part of it was that there was no tiring Jack. The longer he played, the better he liked it. The oftener Jarley's shins received kicks intended for the football, the louder he laughed. When Jarley, serving as a goal-post, stood at one end of the attic, Jarley junior, standing several yards away, often appeared to mistake him for two goal-posts, and to make an honest effort to kick the ball through him. Slowly the hours passed, until finally six o'clock struck, and Master Jack's supper was announced.

The day was over at last. Wearily Jarley dragged himself down the stairs and reckoned up the day's losses. In glass and bric-a-brac destroyed he was some twenty or thirty dollars out. In mayonnaise dressing lost at dinner through the untoward act of the football he was out one pleasurable sensation to his palate, and Jarley was one of those, to whom, that is a loss of an irreparable nature. In bodily estate he was practically a bankrupt. Had he bicycled all morning and played golf all the afternoon he could not have been half so weary. Had he been thrown from a horse flat upon an asphalt pavement he could not have been half so bruised; all of which Mrs. Jarley considerately noted, and with an effort recovered her amiability for her husband's sake, so that after eight o'clock, at which hour Jack retired to bed, a little rest was obtainable, and Jarley's equanimity was slowly restored.

"Well," said Mrs. Jarley, as they went up-stairs at eleven, "it hasn't been a very peaceful day, has it, dear?"

"Oh, that all depends on how you spell peace. If you spell it p-i-e-c-e, it's been full of pieces," returned Jarley, with a smile; "but I say, my dear, I want to modify my statement last night that I had nothing to be thankful for. I have discovered one great blessing."

"What's that—a football?" queried Mrs. Jarley.

"Not by ten thousand long shots!" cried Jarley. "No, indeed. It's this: I'm more thankful than I can express that Jack is not twins. If he had been, you'd have been a widow this evening."



HARRY AND MAUDE AND I—ALSO JAMES

We both loved Maude deeply, and Maude loved us. We know that, because Maude told us so. She told Harry so one Sunday evening on the way home from church, and she told me so the following Saturday afternoon on the way to the matinee.

This was the cause of the dispute Harry and I had in the club corner that Saturday night. Harry and I are confidants, and neither of us has secrets that the other does not share, and so, of course, Maude's feeling towards each of us was fully revealed.

We did not quarrel over it, for Harry and I never quarrel. I want to quarrel, but it is a peculiar thing about me that I always want to quarrel with men named Harry, but never can quite do it. Harry is a name which, per se, arouses my ire, but which carries with it also the soothing qualities which dispel irritation.

This is a point for the philosopher, I think. Why is it that we cannot quarrel with some men bearing certain names, while with far better men bearing other names we are always at swords' points? Who ever quarrelled with a man who had so endeared himself to the world, for instance, that the world spoke of him as Jack, or Bob, or Willie? And who has not quarrelled with Georges and Ebenezers and Horaces ad lib., and been glad to have had the chance?

But this is a thing apart. This time we have set out to tell that other story which is always mentioned but never told.

Maude loved us. That was the point upon which Harry and I agreed. We had her authority for it; but where we differed was, which of the two did she love the better?

Harry, of course, took his own side in the matter. He is a man of prejudice, and argues from sentiment rather than from conviction.

He said that on her way home from church a girl's thoughts are of necessity solemn, and her utterances are therefore, the solemn truth. He added that, in a matter of such importance as love, the conclusion reached after an hour or two of spiritual reflection and instruction, such as church in the evening inspires, is the true conclusion.

On the other hand, I maintained that human nature has something to do with women. Very little, of course, but still enough to make my point a good one. It is human nature for a girl to prefer matinees to Sunday evening services. This is sad, no doubt, but so are some other great truths. Maude, as a true type of girlhood, would naturally think more of the man who was taking her to a matinee than of the fellow who was escorting her home from church, therefore she loved me better than she did Harry, and he ought to have the sense to see it and withdraw.

Unfortunately, Harry is near-sighted in respect to arguments evolved by the mind of another, though in the perception of refinements in his own reasoning he has the eye of the eagle. "Love on the way to a matinee," he said, "is one part affection and nine parts enthusiasm."

"And love on the return from church is in all ten parts temporary aberration," I returned. "It is what you might call Seventh Day affection. Quiet, and no doubt sincere, but it is dissipated by the rising of the Monday sun. It is like our good resolutions on New Year's Day, which barely last over a fortnight. Some little word spoken by the rector may have aroused in her breast a spark of love for you, but one spark does not make a conflagration. Properly fanned it may develop into one, but in itself it is nothing more than a spark. Who can say that it was not pity that led Maude to speak so to you? Your necktie may have been disarranged without your knowing it, and at a time when she could not tell you of it. That sort of thing inspires pity, and you know as well as I do that pity and love are cousins, but cousins who never marry. You are favored, but not to the extent that I am."

"You argue well," returned Harry, "but you ignore the moon. In the solemn presence of the great orb of night no woman would swear falsely."

"You prick your argument with your point," I answered. "There were no extraneous arguments brought to bear on Maude when she confessed to me that she loved me. It was done in the cold light of day. There was no moon around to egg her on when she confessed her affection for me. I know the moon pretty well myself, and I know just what effect it has on truth. I have told falsehoods in the moonlight that I knew were falsehoods, and yet while Luna was looking on, no creature in the universe could have convinced me of their untruthfulness. The moon's rays have kissed the Blarney-stone, Harry. A moonlight truth is a noonday lie."

"Doesn't the genial warmth of the sun ever lead one from the path of truth?" queried Harry, satirical of manner.

"Yes," I answered. "But not in a horse-car with people treading on your feet."

"What has that to do with it?" Harry asked.

"It was on a Broadway car that Maude confessed," I answered.

Harry looked blue. His eyes said: "Gad! How she must love you!" But his lips said: "Ho! Nonsense!"

"It is the truth," said I, seeing that Harry was weakening. "As we were waiting for the car to come along I said to her: 'Maude, I am not the man I ought to be, but I have one redeeming quality: I love you to distraction.'

"She was about to reply when the car came. We were requested to step lively. We did so, and the car started. Then as we stood in the crowded aisle of the car we spoke in enigmas.

"'Did you hear what I said, Maude?' I asked.

"'Yes,' said she, gazing softly out of the window, and a slight touch of red coming into her cheeks. 'Yes, I heard.'

"'And what is your reply?' I whispered.

"'So do I,' she answered, with a sigh."

Harry laughed, and so irritatingly that had his name been Thomas I should have struck him.

"What is the joke?" I asked.

"You won't think it's funny," Harry answered.

"Then it must be a poor joke," I retorted, a little nettled. "Well, it's on you," he said. "You have simply shown me that Maude never told you she loved you. That's the joke."

I was speechless with wrath, but my eyes spoke. "How have I shown that?" they asked in my behalf.

"You say that you told Maude that you loved her to distraction. To which declaration she replied, 'So do I.' Where there is in that any avowal that she loves you I fail to see. She simply stated that she too loved herself to distraction, and I breathe again."

"Hair-splitting!" said I, wrathfully.

"No—side-splitting!" returned Harry, with a roar of laughter. "Now my declaration was very different from yours. It was made when Maude and I were walking home from church. It was about nine o'clock, and the streets were bathed in mellow moonlight. I declared myself because I could not help myself. I had no intention of doing so when I started out earlier in the evening, but the uplifting effect of the service of song at church, combined with the most romantic kind of a moon, forced me into it. I told her I was a struggler; that I was not yet able to support a wife; and that while I did not wish to ask any pledge from her, I could not resist telling her that I loved her with all my heart and soul."

I began to feel blue. "And what did she say?" I asked, a little hoarsely.

"She said she returned my affection."

I braced up. "Ha, ha, ha!" I laughed. "This time the joke is on you."

"I fail to see it," he said.

"Of course," I retorted. "It is not one of your jokes. But say, Harry, when you send a poem to a magazine and the editor doesn't want it, what does he do with it?"

"Returns it. Ah!"

The "ah" was a gasp.

"You are the hair-splitter this time," said he, ruefully.

"I am," said I. "I could effectually destroy a whole wig of hairs like that. If you are right in your reasoning as to Maude's love for me, I am right as regards her love for you. We are both splitting hairs in most unprofitable fashion."

"We are," said Harry, with a sigh. "There is only one way to settle the matter."

"And that?"

"Let's call around there now and ask her."

"I am agreeable," said I.

"Often," said Harry, ringing for our coats.

In a few moments we were ready to depart; and as we stepped out into the night, whom should we run up against but that detestable Jimmie Brown!

"Whither away, boys?" he asked; in his usual bubblesome manner.

"We are going to make a call."

"Ah! Well, wait a minute, won't you? I have some news. I'm in great luck, and I want you fellows to join me in a health to the future Mrs. B."

"Engaged at last, eh, Brown?" said Harry.

I did not speak, for I felt a sudden and most depressing sinking of the heart.

"Yes," said Brown; and then he told us to whom.

It is not necessary to mention the lady's name. Suffice it to say that Harry and I both returned to our corner in the club, discarded our overcoats, and talked about two subjects.

The first was the weather.

The second, the fickleness of women.

Incidentally we agreed that there was something irritating about certain names, and on this occasion James excited our ire somewhat more than was normal.

But we did not lick James. We had too much regard for some one else to split a hair of his head.



AN AFFINITIVE ROMANCE

I

MR. AUGUSTUS RICHARDS'S IDEAL

Mr. Augustus Richards was thirty years of age and unmarried. He could afford to marry, and he had admired many women, but none of them came up to his ideals. Miss Fotheringay, for instance, represented his notions as to what a woman should be physically, but intellectually he found her wofully below his required standard. She was tall and stately—Junoesque some people called her—but in her conversation she was decidedly flippant. She was interested in all the small things of life, but for the great ones she had no inclination. She preferred a dance with a callow youth to a chat with a man of learning. She worshipped artificial in-door life, but had no sympathy with nature. The country she abominated, and her ideas of rest consisted solely in a change of locality, which was why she went to Newport every summer, there to indulge in further routs and dances when she wearied of the routs and dances of New York.

Miss Patterson, on the other hand, represented to the fullest degree the intellectual standard Mr. Augustus Richards had set up for the winner of his affections. She was fond of poetry and of music. She was a student of letters, and a clever talker on almost all the arts and sciences in which Mr. Augustus Richards delighted. But, alas! physically she was not what he could admire. She was small and insignificant in appearance. She was pallid-faced, and, it must be confessed, extremely scant of locks; and the idea of marrying her was to Mr. Augustus Richards little short of preposterous. Others, there were, too, who attracted him in some measure, but who likewise repelled him in equal, if not greater measure.

What he wanted Mrs. Augustus Richards to be was a composite of the best in the beautiful Miss Fotheringay, the intellectual Miss Patterson, the comfortably rich but extremely loud Miss Barrows, with a dash of the virtues of all the others thrown in.

For years he looked for such a one, but season after season passed away and the ideal failed to materialize, as unfortunately most ideals have a way of doing, and hither and yon Mr. Augustus Richards went unmarried, and, as society said, a hopelessly confirmed old bachelor—more's the pity.

II

MISS HENDERSON'S STANDARD

Miss Flora Henderson was born and bred in Boston, and, like Mr. Augustus Richards, had reached the age of thirty without having yielded to the allurements of matrimony. This was not because she had not had the opportunity, for opportunity she had had in greatest measure. She made her first appearance in society at the age of seventeen, and for every year since that interesting occasion she had averaged four proposals of marriage; and how many proposals that involved, every person who can multiply thirteen by four can easily discover. Society said she was stuck up, but she knew she wasn't. She did not reject men for the mere love of it. It was not vanity that led her to say no to so many adoring swains; it was simply the fact that not one in all the great number of would-be protectors represented her notions as to the style of man with whom she could be so happy that she would undertake the task of making him so.

Miles Dawson, for instance, was the kind of man that any ordinary girl would have snapped up the moment he declared himself. He had three safe-deposit boxes in town, and there was evidence in sight that he did not rent them for the purpose of keeping cigars in them. He had several horses and carriages. He was a regular attendant upon all the social functions of the season, and at many of them he appeared to enjoy himself hugely. At the musicals and purely literary entertainments, however, Miles Dawson always looked, as he was, extremely bored. Once Miss Henderson had seen him yawn at a Shelley reading. He was, in short, of the earth earthy, or perhaps, to be more accurate, of the horse horsey. Intellectual pleasures were naught to him but fountains of ennui, and being a very honest, frank sort of a person, he took no pains to conceal the fact, and it ruined his chances with Miss Henderson, at whose feet he had more than once laid the contents of the deposit-boxes—figuratively, of course—as well as the use of his stables and himself. The fact that he looked like a Greek god did not influence her in the least; she knew he was by nature a far cry from anything Greek or godlike, and she would have none of him.

Had he had the mental qualities of Henry Webster, the famous scholar of Cambridge, it might have been different, but he hadn't these any more than Henry Webster had Dawson's Greek godliness of person.

As for Webster, he too had laid bare a heart full of affection before the cold gaze of Miss Flora Henderson, and with no more pleasing results to himself than had attended the suit of his handsome rival, as he had considered Dawson.

"I think I can make you happy," he had said, modestly. "We have many traits in common. We are both extremely fond of reading of the better sort. You would prove of inestimable service to me in the advancement of my ambition in letters, as well as in the educational world, and I think you would find me by nature responsive to every wish you could have. I am a lover of music, and so are you. We both delight in the study of art, and there is in us both that inherent love of nature which would make of this earth a very paradise for me were you to become my life's companion."

Then Miss Flora Henderson had looked upon his stern and extremely homely face, and had unconsciously even to herself glanced rapidly at his uncouth figure, and could not bring herself to answer yes. Here was the intellectual man, but his physical shortcomings forbade the utterance of the word which should make Henry Webster the happiest of men. Had he written his proposal he would have stood a better chance, though I doubt that in any event he could have succeeded. Then he could have stood at least as an abstract mentality, but the intrusion of his physical self destroyed all. She refused him, and he went back to his books, oppressed by an overwhelming sense of loneliness, from which he did not recover for one or two hours.

So it went with all the others. No man of all those who sought Miss Henderson's favor had the godlike grace of Miles Dawson, combined with the strong intellectuality of Henry Webster, with the added virtues of wealth and amiability, steadfastness of purpose, and all that. It seemed sometimes to Miss Flora Henderson, as it had often seemed to Mr. Augustus Richards, that the standard set was too high, and that an all-wise Providence was no longer sending the perfect being of the ideal into the world, if, indeed, He had ever done so.

Both the man and the woman were yearning, they came finally to believe, after the unattainable, but each was strong enough of character to do with nothing less excellent.

III

A GLANCE AT MISS FLORA HENDERSON HERSELF

But what sort of a woman was Miss Flora Henderson, it may be asked, that she should demand so much in the man with whom she should share the burdens of life? Surely one should be wellnigh perfect one's self to require so much of another—and I really think Miss Flora Henderson was so.

In the first place, she was tall and stately—Junoesque some people called her. She had an eye fit for all things. It was soft or hard, as one wished it. It was melting or fixed, according to the mood one would have her betray. She was never flippant, and while the small things of life interested her to an extent, much more absorbed was she in the great things which pertain to existence. Dance she could, and well, but she danced not to the exclusion of all other things. With dancing people she was a dancer full of the poetry of motion, and enjoying it openly and innocently. With a man of learning, however, she was equally at home as with the callow youth. With nature in her every mood was she in sympathy. She was fond of poetry and of music; indeed, to sum up her character in as few words as possible, she was everything that so critical a dreamer of the ideal as Mr. Augustus Richards could have wished for, nor was there one weak spot in the armor of her character at which he could cavil.

In short, Miss Flora Henderson, of Boston, was the ideal of whom Mr. Augustus Richards, of New York, dreamed.

IV

A BRIEF GLIMPSE OF MR. AUGUSTUS RICHARDS

And as Miss Flora Henderson represented in every way the ideal of Mr. Augustus Richards, so did he represent hers. He had the physical beauty of Miles Dawson, and was quite the equal of the latter in the matter of wealth. So many horses he had not, but he owned a sufficient number of them. He was not horsemad, nor did he yawn over Shelley or despise aesthetic pleasures. In truth, in the pursuit of aesthetic delights he was as eager as Henry Webster. He was in all things the sort of man to whom our heroine of Boston would have been willing to intrust her hand and her heart.

V

CONCLUSION

But they never met.

And they lived happily ever after.



MRS. UPTON'S DEVICE

A TALE OF MATCH-MAKING

I

THE RESOLVE

"For when two Join in the same adventure, one perceives Before the other how they ought to act."

—BRYANT.

Mrs. Upton had made up her mind that it must be, and that was the beginning of the end. The charming match-maker had not indulged her passion for making others happy, willy-nilly, for some time—not, in fact, since she had arranged the match between Marie Willoughby and Jack Hearst, which, as the world knows, resulted first in a marriage, and then, as the good lady had not foreseen, in a South Dakota divorce. This unfortunate termination to her well-meant efforts in behalf of the unhappy pair was a severe blow to Mrs. Upton. She had been for many years the busiest of match-makers, and seldom had she failed to bring about desirable results. In the homes of a large number of happy pairs her name was blessed for all that she had done, and until this no unhappy marriage had ever come from her efforts. One or two engagements of her designing had failed to eventuate, owing to complications over which she had no control, and with which she was in no way concerned; but that was merely one of the risks of the business in which she was engaged. The most expert artisan sometimes finds that he has made a failure of some cherished bit of work, but he does not cease to pursue his vocation because of that. So it was with Mrs. Upton, and when some of her plans went askew, and two young persons whom she had designed for each other chose to take two other young people into their hearts instead, she accepted the situation with a merely negative feeling of regret. But when she realized that it was she who had brought Marie Willoughby and Jack Hearst together, and had, beyond all question, made the match which resulted so unhappily, then was Mrs. Upton's regret and sorrow of so positive a nature that she practically renounced her chief occupation in life.

"I'll never, never, never, so long as I live, have anything more to do with bringing about marriages!" she cried, tearfully, to her husband, when that worthy gentleman showed her a despatch in the evening paper to the effect that Mr. and Mrs. Jack had invoked the Western courts to free them from a contract which had grown irksome to both. "I shall not even help the most despairing lover over a misunderstanding which may result in two broken hearts. I'm through. The very idea of Marie Willoughby and Johnny Hearst not being able to get along together is preposterous. Why, they were made for each other."

"I haven't a doubt of it," returned Upton, with whom it was a settled principle of life always to agree with his better half. "But sometimes there's a flaw in the workmanship, my dear, and while Marie may have been made for Jack, and Jack for Marie, it is just possible that the materials were not up to the specifications."

"Well, it's a burning shame, anyhow," said Mrs. Upton, "and I'll never make another match."

"That's good," said Upton. "I wouldn't—or, if I did, I'd see to it that it was a safety, instead of a fusee that burns fiercely for a minute and then goes out altogether. Stick to vestas."

"I don't know what you mean by vestas, but I'm through just the same," retorted Mrs. Upton; and she really was—for five years.

"Vestas are nice quiet matches that don't splurge and splutter. They give satisfaction to everybody. They burn evenly, and are altogether the swell thing in matches—and their heads don't fly off either," Upton explained.

"Well, I won't make even a vesta, you old goose," said Mrs. Upton, smiling faintly.

"You've made one, and it's a beauty," observed Upton, quietly, referring of course to their own case.

So, as I have said, Mrs. Upton forswore her match-making propensities for a period of five years, and people noting the fact marvelled greatly at her strength of character in keeping her hands out of matters in which they had once done such notable service. And it did indeed require much force of character in Mrs. Upton to hold herself aloof from the matrimonial ventures of others; for, although she was now a woman close upon forty, she had still the feelings of youth; she was fond of the society of young people, and had been for a long time the best-beloved chaperon in the community. It was hard for her to watch a growing romance and not help it along as she had done of yore; and many a time did her lips withhold the words that trembled upon them—words which would have furthered the fortunes of a worthy suitor to a waiting hand—but she had resolved, and there was the end of it.

It is history, however, that the strongest characters will at times falter and fall, and so it was with Mrs. Upton and her resolution finally. There came a time when the pressure was too strong to be resisted.

"I can't help it, Henry," she said, as she thought it all over, and saw wherein her duty lay. "We must bring Molly Meeker and Walter together. He is just the sort of a man for her; and if there is one thing he needs more than another to round out his character, it is a wife like Molly."

"Remember your oath, my dear," replied Upton.

"But this will be a vesta, Henry," smiled Mrs. Upton. "Walter and you are very much alike, and you said the other night that Molly reminded you of me—sometimes."

"That's true," said Upton. "She does—that's what I like about her—but, after all, she isn't you. A mill-pond might remind you at times of a great and beautiful lake, but it wouldn't be the lake, you know. I grant that Walter and I are alike as two peas, but I deny that Molly can hold a candle to you."

"Oh you!" snapped Mrs. Upton. "Haven't you got your eyes opened to my faults yet?"

"Yessum," said Upton. "They're great, and I couldn't get along without 'em, but I wouldn't stand them for five minutes if I'd married Molly Meeker instead of you. You'd better keep out of this. Stick to your resolution. Let Molly choose her own husband, and Walter his wife. You never can tell how things are going to turn out. Why, I introduced Willie Timpkins to George Barker at the club one night last winter, feeling that there were two fellows who were designed by Providence for the old Damon and Pythias performance, and it wasn't ten minutes before they were quarrelling like a couple of cats, and every time they meet nowadays they have to be introduced all over again."

"I don't wonder at that at all," said Mrs. Upton. "Willie Timpkins is precisely the same kind of a person that George Barker is, and when they meet each other and realize that they are exactly alike, and see how sort of small and mean they really are, it destroys their self-love."

"I never saw it in that light before," said Upton, reflectively, "but I imagine you are right. There's lots in that. If a man really wrote down on paper his candid opinion of himself, he'd have a good case for slander against the publisher who printed it—I guess."

"I should think you'd have known better than to bring those two together, and under the circumstances I don't wonder they hate each other," said Mrs. Upton.

"Sympathy ought to count for something," pleaded Upton. "Don't you think?"

"Of course," replied Mrs. Upton; "but a man wants to sympathize with the other fellow, not with himself. If you were a woman you'd understand that a little better. But to return to Molly and Walter—don't you think they really were made for each other?"

"No, I don't," said Upton. "I don't believe that anybody ever was made for anybody else. On that principle every baby that is born ought to be labelled: Fragile. Please forward to Soandso. This 'made-for-each-other' business makes me tired. It's predestination all over again, which is good enough for an express package, but doesn't go where souls are involved. Suppose that through some circumstance over which he has no control a Michigan man was made for a Russian girl—how the deuce is she to get him?"

"That's all nonsense, Henry," said Mrs. Upton, impatiently. "I don't know why," observed Upton. "I can quite understand how a Michigan man might make a first-rate husband for a Russian girl. Your idea involves the notion of affinity, and if I know anything about affinities, they have to go chasing each other through the universe for cycle after cycle, in the hope of some day meeting—and it's all beastly nonsense. My affinity might be Delilah, and Samson's your beautiful self; but I'll tell you, on my own responsibility, that if I had caught Samson hanging about your father's house during my palmy days I'd have thrashed the life out of him, whether his hair was short or long, and don't you forget it, Mrs. Upton."

Mrs. Upton laughed heartily. "I've no doubt you could have done it, my dear Henry," said she. "I'd have helped you, anyhow. But affinities or not, we are placed here for a certain purpose—"

"I presume so," said Upton. "I haven't found out what it is, but I'm satisfied."

"Yes—and so am I. Now," continued Mrs. Upton, "I think that we all ought to help each other along. Whether I am your affinity or not, or whether you are mine—"

"I am yours—for keeps, too," said Upton. "I shall be just as attentive in heaven, where marriage is not recognized, as I am here, if I hang for it."

"Well—however that may be, we have this life to live, and we should go about it in the best way possible. Now I believe that Walter will be more of a man, will accomplish more in the end, if he marries Molly than he will as a bachelor, or if he married—Jennie Perkins, for instance, who is so much of a manly woman that she has no sympathy with either sex."

"Right!" said Upton.

"You like Walter, don't you, and want him to succeed?"

"I do."

"You realize that an unmarried physician hasn't more than half a chance?"

"Unfortunately yes," said Upton. "Though I don't agree that a man can cut your leg off more expertly or carry you through the measles more successfully just because he has happened to get married. As a matter of fact, when I have my leg cut off I want it to be done by a man who hasn't been kept awake all night by the squalling of his lately arrived son."

"Nevertheless," said Mrs. Upton, "society decrees that a doctor needs a wife to round him out. There's no disputing that fact—and it is perfectly proper. Bachelors may know all about the science of medicine, and make a fair showing in surgery, but it isn't until a man is married that he becomes the wholly successful practitioner who inspires confidence."

"I suppose it's so," said Upton. "No doubt of it. A man who has suffered always does do better—"

"Henry!" ejaculated Mrs. Upton, severely. "Remember this: I didn't marry you because I thought you were a cynic. Now Walter as a young physician needs a wife—"

"I suppose he's got to have somebody to confide professional secrets to," said Upton.

"That may be the reason for it," observed Mrs. Upton; "but whatever the reason, it is a fact. He needs a wife, and I propose that he shall have one; and it is very important that he should get the right one."

"Are you going to propose to the girl in his behalf?" queried Henry.

"No; but I think he's a man of sense, and I know Molly is. Now I propose to bring them together, and to throw them at each other's heads in such a way that they won't either of them guess that I am doing it—"

"Now, my dear," interrupted Upton, "don't! Don't try any throwing. You know as well as I do that no woman can throw straight. If you throw Molly Meeker at Walter's head—"

"I may strike his heart. Precisely!" said Mrs. Upton, triumphantly. "And that's all I want. Then we shall have a beautiful wedding," she added, with enthusiasm. "We'll give a little dinner on the 18th—a nice informal dinner. We'll invite the Jacksons and the Peltons and Molly and Walter. They will meet, fall in love like sensible people, and there you are."

"I guess it's all right," said Upton, "though to fall in love sensibly isn't possible, my dear. What people who get married ought to do is to fall unreasonably, madly in love—"

But Mrs. Upton did not listen. She was already at her escritoire, writing the invitations for the little dinner.

II

A SUCCESSFUL CASE

"The pleasantest angling is to see the fish ... greedily devour the treacherous bait." —Much Ado about Nothing.

The invitations to Mrs. Upton's little dinner were speedily despatched by the strategic maker of matches, and, to her great delight, were one and all accepted with commendable promptness, as dinner invitations are apt to be. The night came, and with it came also the unsuspecting young doctor and the equally unsuspicious Miss Meeker. Everything was charming. The Jacksons were pleased with the Peltons, and the Peltons were pleased with the Jacksons, and, best of all, Walter was pleased with Miss Meeker, while she was not wholly oblivious to his existence. She even quoted something he happened to say at the table, after the ladies had retired, leaving the men to their cigars, and had added that "that was the way she liked to hear a man talk"—all of which was very encouraging to the well-disposed spider who was weaving the web for these two particular flies. As for Bliss—Walter Bliss, M.D.—he was very much impressed; so much so, indeed, that as the men left their cigars to return to the ladies he managed to whisper into Upton's ear,

"Rather bright girl that, Henry."

"Very," said Upton. "Sensible, too. One of those bachelor girls who've got too much sense to think much about men. Pity, rather, in a way, too. She'd make a good wife, but, Lord save us! it would require an Alexander or a Napoleon to make love to her."

"Oh, I don't know," said Bliss, confidently. "If the right man came along—"

"Of course; but there aren't many right men," said Upton. "I've no doubt there's somebody equal to the occasion somewhere, but with the population of the world at the present figures there's a billion chances to one she'll never meet him. What do you think of the financial situation, Walter? Pretty bad, eh?"

Thus did the astute Mr. Upton play the cards dealt out to him by his fairer half in this little game of hearts of her devising, and it is a certain fact that he played them well, for the interjection of a more or less political phase into their discussion rather whetted than otherwise the desire of Dr. Bliss to talk about Miss Meeker.

"Oh, hang the financial situation! Where does she live, Henry?" was Bliss's answer, from which Upton deduced that all was going well.

That his deductions were correct was speedily shown, for it was not many days before Mrs. Upton, with a radiant face, handed Upton a note from Walter asking her if she would not act as chaperon for a little sail on the Sound upon his sloop. He thought a small party of four, consisting of herself and Henry, Miss Meeker and himself, could have a jolly afternoon and evening of it, dining on board in true picnic fashion, and returning to earth in the moonlight.

"How do you like that, my lord?" she inquired, her eyes beaming with delight.

"Dreadful!" said Henry. "Got to the moonlight stage already—poor Bliss!"

"Poor Bliss indeed," retorted Mrs. Upton. "Blissful Bliss, you ought to call him. Shall we go?"

"Shall we go?" echoed Upton. "If I fell off the middle of Brooklyn Bridge, would I land in the water?"

"I don't know," laughed Mrs. Upton. "You might drop into the smoke-stack of a ferry-boat."

"Of course we'll go," said Upton. "I'd go yachting with my worst enemy."

"Very well. I'll accept," said Mrs. Upton, and she did. The sail was a great success, and everything went exactly as the skilful match-maker had wished. Bliss looked well in his yachting suit. The appointments of the yacht were perfect. The afternoon was fine, the supper entrancing, and the moonlight irresistible. Miss Meeker was duly impressed, and as for the doctor, as Upton put it, he was "going down for the third time."

"If you aren't serious in this match, my dear, throw him a rope," he pleaded, in his friend's behalf.

"He wouldn't avail himself of it if I did," said Mrs. Upton. "He wants to drown—and I fancy Molly wants him to, too, because I can't get her to mention his name any more."

"Is that a sign?" asked Upton.

"Indeed yes; if she talked about him all the time I should be afraid she wasn't quite as deeply in love as I want her to be. She's only a woman, you know, Henry. If she were a man, it would be different."

The indications were verified by the results. August came, and Mrs. Upton invited Miss Meeker to spend the month at the Uptons' summer cottage at Skirton, and Bliss was asked up for "a day or two" while she was there.

"Isn't it a little dangerous, my dear?" Upton asked, when his wife asked him to extend the hospitality of the cottage to Bliss. "I should think twice before asking Walter to come."

"How absurd you are!" retorted the match-maker. "What earthly objection can there be?"

"No objection at all," returned Upton, "but it may destroy all your good work. It will be a terrible test for Walter, I am afraid—breakfast, for instance, is a fearful ordeal for most men. They are so apt to be at their very worst at breakfast, and it might happen that Walter could not stand the strain upon him through a series of them. Then Molly may not look well in the mornings. How is that? Is she like you—always at her best?"

Mrs. Upton replied with a smile. It was evident that she did not consider the danger very great.

"They might as well get used to seeing each other at breakfast," she said. "If they find they don't admire each other at that time, it is just as well they should know it in advance."

Hence it was, as I have said, that Bliss was invited to Skirton for a day or two. And the day or two, in the most natural way in the world, lengthened out into a week or two. There were walks and talks; there were drives and long horseback rides along shaded mountain roads, and when it rained there were mornings in the music-room together. Bliss was good-natured at breakfast, and Molly developed a capacity for appearing to advantage at that trying meal that aroused Upton's highest regard; and finally—well, finally Miss Molly Meeker whispered something into Mrs. Upton's ear, at which the latter was so overjoyed that she nearly hugged her young friend to death.

"Here, my dear, look out," remonstrated Upton, who happened to be present. "Don't take it all. Perhaps she wants to live long enough to whisper something to me."

"I do," said Molly, and then she announced her engagement to Walter Bliss; and she did it so sweetly that Upton had all he could do to keep from manifesting his approval after the fashion adopted by his wife.

"I wish I was a literary man," said Upton to his wife the next day, when they were talking over the situation. "If I knew how to write I'd make a fortune, I believe, just following up the little romances that you plan."

"Oh, nonsense, Henry," replied Mrs. Upton. "I don't plan any romances—I select certain people for each other and bring them together, that is all."

"And push 'em along—prod 'em slightly when they don't seem to get started, eh?" insinuated Upton. "Well, yes—sometimes."

"And what else does a novelist do? He picks out two people, brings them together, and pushes them along through as many chapters as he needs for his book," said Henry. "That's all. Now if I could follow your couples I'd have a tremendous advantage in basing my studies on living models instead of having to imagine my realism. I repeat I wish I could write. This little romance of Mollie and Walter that has just ended—"

"Just what?" asked Mrs. Upton.

"Just ended," repeated Upton. "What's the matter with that?"

"You mean just begun," said Mrs. Upton, with a sigh. "The hardest work a match-maker has is in conducting the campaign after the nominations are made. When two people love each other madly, they are apt to do a great deal of quarrelling over absolutely nothing, and I'm not at all sure that an engagement means marriage until the ceremony has taken place."

"And even then," suggested Henry, "there are the divorce courts, eh?"

"We won't refer to them," said Mrs. Upton, severely; "they are relics of barbarism. But as for the ending of my romance, my real work now begins. I must watch those two young people carefully and see that their little quarrels are smoothed over, their irritations allayed, and that every possible difference between them is adjusted."

"But you and I didn't quarrel when we were engaged," persisted Upton.

"No, we didn't, Henry," replied Mrs. Upton. "But that was only because it takes two to make a quarrel, and I loved you so much that I was really blind to all your possibilities as an irritant."

"Oh!" said Henry, reflectively.

III

A SET-BACK

"All is confounded, all! Reproach and everlasting shame Sits mocking in our plumes."

—Henry V.

Time demonstrated with great effectiveness the unhappy fact that Mrs. Upton knew whereof she spoke when she likened an engagement to a political campaign, in that the real battle begins after the nominations are made. Walter Bliss had decided views as to life, and Miss Meeker was hardly less settled in her convictions. Long before she had met Bliss, in default of a real she had builded up in her mind an ideal man, which at first, second, and even third sight Walter had seemed to her to represent. But unfortunately there is a fourth sight, and the lover or the fiancee who can get beyond this is safe—comparatively safe, that is, for everything in this world has its merits or its demerits, comparatively speaking, and the comparison is more often than not made from the point of view of what ought to be rather than of what really is. Mrs. Upton was a realist—that is, she thought she was; and so was Miss Meeker. Everybody looks at life from his or her own point of view, and there must always be, consequently, two points of view, for there will always be a male way and a female way of looking at things. Walter was in love with his profession. Molly was in love with him as an abstract thing. She knew nothing of him as a Washington fighting measles; she was not aware whether he could combat tonsillitis as successfully as Napoleon fought the Austrians or not, and it may be added that she didn't care. He was merely a man in her estimation; a thing in the abstract, and a most charming thing on the whole. He, on the other hand, looked upon her not as a woman, but as a soul, and a purified soul at that: an angel, indeed, without the incumbrance of wings, was she, and with a rather more comprehensive knowledge of dress than is attributed to most of angels. But two people cannot go on forming an ideal of each other continuously without at some time reaching a point of divergence, and Walter and Molly reached that point within ten weeks. It happened that while calling upon her one evening Walter received a professional summons which he admitted was all nonsense—why should people call in doctors when it is "all nonsense"?

The call came while Walter was turning over the leaves at the piano as Molly played.

"What is this?" he said, as he opened the note that was addressed to him. "Humph! Mrs. Hubbard's boy is sick—"

"Must you go?" Molly asked.

"I suppose so," said Walter. "I saw him this afternoon, and there is not the slightest thing the matter with him, but I must go."

"Why?" asked Molly. "Are you the kind of doctor they call in when there's nothing the matter?"

She did not mean to be sarcastic, but she seemed to be, and Walter, of course, like a properly sensitive soul, was hurt.

"I must go," he said, positively, ignoring the thrust.

"But you say there is nothing the matter with the boy," suggested Molly.

"I'm going just the same," said Walter, and he went.

Molly played on at the piano until she heard the front door slam, and then she rose up and went to the window. Walter had gone and was out of sight. Then, sad to say, she became philosophical. It doesn't really pay for girls to become philosophical, but Molly did not know that, and she began a course of reasoning.

"He knows he isn't needed, but he goes," she said to herself, as she gazed dejectedly out of the window at the gaslamps on the other side of the street. "And he will of course charge the Hubbards for his services, admitting, however, that his services are nothing. That is not conscientious—it is not professional. He is not practising for the love of his profession, but for the love of money. I am disappointed in him—and we were having such a pleasant time, too!"

So she ran on as she sat there in the window-seat looking out upon the dreary street; and you may be sure that the commingling of her ideals and her disappointments and her sense of loneliness did not help Walter's case in the least, and that when they met the next time her manner towards him was what some persons term "sniffy," which was a manner Walter could not and would not abide. Hence a marked coolness arose between the two, which by degrees became so intensified that at about the time when Mrs. Upton was expected to be called in to assist at a wedding, she was stunned by the information that "all was over between them." "Just think of that, Henry," the good match-maker cried, wrathfully. "All is over between them, and Molly pretends she is glad of it."

"Made for each other too!" ejaculated Upton, with a mock air of sorrow. "What was the matter?"

"I can't make out exactly," observed Mrs. Upton. "Molly told me all about it, and it struck me as a merely silly lovers' quarrel, but she won't hear of a reconciliation. She says she finds she was mistaken in him. I wish you'd find out Walter's version of it."

"I respectfully refuse, my dear Mrs. Upton," returned Henry. "I'm not a partner in your enterprise, and if you get a misfit couple returned on your hands it is your lookout, not mine. Pity, isn't it, that you can't manage matters like a tailor? Suit of clothes is made for me, I try it on, don't like it, send it back and have it changed to fit. If you could make a few alterations now in Molly—"

"Henry, you are flippant," asserted Mrs. Upton. "There's nothing the matter with Molly—not the least little thing; and Walter ought to be ashamed of himself to give her up, and I'm going to see that he doesn't. I believe a law ought to be made, anyhow, requiring engaged persons who want to break off to go into court and show cause why they shouldn't be enjoined from so doing."

"A sort of antenuptial divorce law, eh?" suggested Upton. "That's not a bad idea; you ought to write to the papers and suggest it—using your maiden name, of course, not mine."

"If you would only find out from Walter what he's mad at, and tell him he's an idiot and a heartless thing, maybe we could smooth it out, because I know that 'way down in her soul Molly loves him."

"Very well, I'll do it," said Upton, good-naturedly; "but mind you it's only to oblige you, and if Bliss throws me out of the club window for meddling in his affairs, it will be your fault."

The doctor did not quite throw Upton out of the window that afternoon when the subject came up, but he did the next thing to it. He turned upon him, and with much gravity remarked: "Upton, I'll talk politics, finance, medicine, surgery, literature, or neck-ties with you, but under no circumstances will I talk about woman with anybody. I prefer a topic concerning which it is possible occasionally to make an intelligent surmise at least. Woman is as comprehensible to a finite mind as chaos. Who's your tailor?"

"You ought to have seen us when he said that," observed Upton to his wife, as he told her about the interview at dinner that evening. "He was as solemn as an Alp, and apparently as immovable as the Sphinx; and as for me, I simply withered on my stalk and crumbled away into dust. Wherefore, my love, I am through; and hereafter if you are going to make matches for my friends and need outside help, get a hired man to help you. I'm did. If I were you I'd let 'em go their own way, and if their lives are spoiled, why, your conscience is clear either way."

But Mrs. Upton had no sympathy with any such view as that. She had been so near to victory that she was not going to surrender now without one more charge. She tried a little sounding of Bliss herself, and finally asked him point-blank if he would take dinner with herself and Upton and Molly and make it up, and he declined absolutely; and it was just as well, for when Molly heard of it she asserted that she had no doubt it would have been a pleasant dinner, but that nothing could have induced her to go. She never wished to see Dr. Bliss again—not even professionally. Mrs. Upton was gradually becoming utterly discouraged. The only hopeful feature of the situation was that there were no "alternates" involved. Bliss was done forever with woman; Miss Meeker had never cared for any man but Walter. Time passed, and the lovers were adamant in their determination never to see each other again. Repeated efforts to bring them together failed, until Mrs. Upton was in despair. It is always darkest, however, just before dawn, and it finally happened that just as hopelessness was beginning to take hold of Mrs. Upton's heart her great device came to her.

IV

THE DEVICE

"Music arose with its voluptuous swell, And all went merry as a marriage bell." —Childe Harold.

"Henry," said Mrs. Upton, one cold January morning, a great light of possibilities dawning upon her troubled soul, "don't you want to take me to the opera next Saturday? Calve is to sing in 'Cavalleria,' and I am very anxious to hear her again."

"I am sorry, but I can't," Upton answered. "I have an engagement with Bliss at the club on Saturday. We're going to take lunch and finish up our billiard tournament. I've got a lead of forty points."

"Oh! Well, then, get me two seats, and I'll take Molly," said the astute match-maker. "And never mind about their being aisle seats. I prefer them in the middle of the row, so that everybody won't be climbing over us when they go out and in."

"All right; I will," said Henry, and the seats were duly procured.

Saturday came, and Upton went to the club, according to his appointment with Walter; but Bliss was not there, nor had he sent any message of explanation. Upton waited until three o'clock, and still the doctor came not; and finally he left the club and sauntered up the Avenue to his house, calling down the while imprecations upon the absent Walter.

"Hang these doctors!" he said, viciously. "They seem to think professional engagements are the only ones worth keeping. Off in his game, I fancy. That's the milk in the cocoanut."

Five minutes later he entered his library, and was astonished to see Mrs. Upton there reading.

"Why, hullo! You here?" he said. "I thought you were at the opera."

"No, I didn't go," Mrs. Upton replied, with a smile.

"There seems to be something in the air that prevents people from keeping their engagements to-day. Bliss didn't turn up," said Henry. "What did you do with the tickets?"

"I sent Molly hers by messenger, and told her I'd join her at the opera-house," said Mrs. Upton, her face beaming. "Did you say Walter didn't go to the club?" she added, anxiously.

"Yes. He's a great fellow, he is! Got no more idea about sticking to an engagement than a cat," said Upton. "Afraid of my forty points, I imagine."

"Possibly; but maybe this will account for it," said Mrs. Upton, with a sigh of relief, which hardly seemed necessary under the circumstances, handing her husband a note.

"What's this?" asked Upton, scanning the address upon the envelope.

"A note—from Walter," Mrs. Upton replied. "Read it."

And Upton read as follows:

"SATURDAY MORNING, January —, 189-.

"MY DEAR MRS. UPTON,—I am sorry to hear that Henry is called away, but there are compensations. If I cannot take luncheon with him, it will give me the greatest pleasure to listen to Calve in your company. I may be a trifle late, but I shall most certainly avail myself of your kind thought of me.

"Yours faithfully, "WALTER BLISS."

"What the deuce is this?" asked Upton. "I called away? Who said I was called away?"

"I did," said Mrs. Upton, pursing her lips to keep from indulging in a smile. "As soon as you left this morning I wrote Walter a note, telling him that you had been hurriedly called to Philadelphia on business, and that you'd asked me to let him know, not having time to do it yourself. And I closed by saying that we had two seats for 'Cavalleria,' and that, as my expected guest had disappointed me, I hoped he might come in if he felt like it during the afternoon and hear Calve. That's his answer. I enclosed him the ticket."

"So that—" said Upton, beginning to comprehend.

"So that Molly and Walter are at the opera together. Hemmed in on both sides, so that they can't escape, with the Intermezzo before them!" said Mrs. Upton, with an air of triumph which was beautiful to look upon.

"Well, you are a genius!" cried Upton, finding his wife's enthusiasm contagious. "I'm almost afraid of you!"

"And you don't think I did wrong to fib?" asked Mrs. Upton.



"Oh, as for that," said Upton, "all geniuses lie! An abnormal development in one direction always indicates an abnormal lack of development in another. Your bump of ingenuity has for the moment absorbed your bump of veracity; but I say, my dear, I wonder if they'll speak?"

"Speak?" echoed Mrs. Upton. "Speak? Why, of course they will! Everybody talks at the opera," she added, joyously.

An hour later the door-bell rang, and the maid announced Miss Meeker and Dr. Bliss. They entered radiant, and not in the least embarrassed.

"Why, how do you do?" said Upton, as calmly as though nothing had happened. "Didn't see you at the club," he added, with a sly wink at his wife.

"Thought you were out of town," said Bliss; and then he turned and glanced inquiringly at the lovely deceiver. But Mrs. Upton said nothing. She was otherwise engaged; for Molly, upon entering the room, had walked directly to her side, and throwing her arms about her neck, kissed her several times most affectionately.

"You dear old thing!" she whispered.

"Mrs.—Upton—I'm very much obliged to you for a very pleasant afternoon," stammered Bliss, recovering from his surprise, the true inwardness of the situation dawning upon him, "as well as for—a good many pleasant afternoons to come. I—ah—I didn't see—ah—Molly until I got seated."

"No," said Molly; "and if he could have gotten away without disturbing a lot of people, I think he'd have gone when he realized where he was. And he wouldn't speak until the Intermezzo was half through."

"Well, I tried hard not to even then," said Walter; "but somehow or other, when the Intermezzo got going, I couldn't help it, and—well, it's to be next month."

And so it was. The wedding took place six weeks later; and all through the service the organist played the Intermezzo in subdued tones, which some people thought rather peculiar—but then they were not aware of all the circumstances.

THE END