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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 matinée.

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 matinées 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 matinée 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 matinée," 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 horse-mad, 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.