The Booming of Acre Hill And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life

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.

[Il­lus­tra­tion: Dur­ing the In­ter­mez­zo.]

“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

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