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."