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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, At Home with the Jardines, by Lilian Bell
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: At Home with the Jardines
+
+
+Author: Lilian Bell
+
+
+
+Release Date: July 22, 2006  [eBook #18895]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AT HOME WITH THE JARDINES***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Al Haines
+
+
+
+AT HOME WITH THE JARDINES
+
+by
+
+LILIAN BELL
+
+Author of "Abroad with the Jimmies," "Hope Loring,", etc.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A. Wessels Company
+New York
+1906
+
+Copyright, 1902
+by Harper & Brothers
+
+Copyright, 1903
+by the Ridgway-Thayer Company
+
+Copyright, 1904
+by Ainslee Magazine Co.
+
+Copyright, 1904
+by L. C. Page & Company (Incorporated)
+
+(All rights reserved)
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+Dr. John Sedgwick Billings, Jr.
+
+AND
+
+Dr. John Clarendon Todd
+
+
+WHOSE COURAGE, SKILL, AND WISDOM
+
+SAVED A PRECIOUS LIFE
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+Chapter
+
+    I. MARY
+   II. THEORIES
+  III. ON THE SUBJECT OF JANITORS
+   IV. THE ANGEL AND THE AGENT
+    V. HOW WE TAMED THE COOK
+   VI. THE BEST MAN'S STORY
+  VII. THE PRICE OF QUIET
+ VIII. MOVING
+   IX. HOW BEE TRIED TO MAKE US SMART
+    X. OUR FIRST HOUSE-PARTY
+   XI. ON THE GENTLE ART OF WASTING OTHER PEOPLE'S TIME
+  XII. A LETTER FROM JIMMIE
+ XIII. THE BREAKING UP OF MARY
+  XIV. AND THEY LIVED HAPPY EVER AFTER
+
+
+
+
+At Home with the Jardines
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+MARY
+
+I have never dared even inquire why our best man began calling my
+husband the Angel.  He was with us a great deal during the first months
+of our marriage, and he is very observing, so I decided to let sleeping
+dogs lie.  I, too, am observing.
+
+It is only fair to state, in justice to the best man, that I am a woman
+of emotional mountain peaks and dark, deep valleys, while the Angel is
+one vast and sunny plateau.  With him rain comes in soothing showers,
+while rain in my disposition means a soaking, drenching torrent which
+sweeps away cattle and cottages and leaves roaring rivers in its wake.
+But it took Mary to discover that the smiling plateau was bedded on
+solid rock, and had its root in infinity.
+
+Mary is my cook!
+
+Yet Mary is more than cook.  She is my housekeeper, mother, trained
+nurse, corporation counsel, keeper of the privy purse, chancellor of
+the exchequer, fighter of exorbitant bills, seamstress, linen woman,
+doctor of small ills, the acme of perpetual good nature, and my best
+friend.
+
+Cheiro, when he read my palm, said he never before had seen a hand
+which had less of a line of luck than mine.  He said that I was obliged
+to put forth tremendous effort for whatever I achieved.  But that was
+before Mary selected me for a mistress, for Mary was my first bit of
+pure luck.  Our meeting came about in this way.
+
+We were at the Waldorf for our honeymoon, which shows how inexperienced
+we were, when a chance acquaintance of the Angel's said to him one
+night in the billiard-room:
+
+"Jardine, I hear that you are going to housekeeping!"
+
+"Yes," said Aubrey, "we are."
+
+"Has your wife engaged a cook yet?"
+
+"Why, no, I don't believe she has thought about it."
+
+"Well, I know exactly the woman for her.  Elderly, honest, experienced,
+cooks game to perfection, doesn't drink, thoroughly competent in every
+way, and the quaintest character I ever knew.  Lived in her last place
+twenty-three years, and only left when the family was broken up.  Shall
+I send her to see you?"
+
+"Do," said Aubrey.
+
+He forgot to tell me about it, so the next morning while he was
+shaving, a knock came, and in walked Mary.  I was in a kimono, writing
+notes and waiting for breakfast to be sent up.  Hearing voices, Aubrey
+came to the door with one-half of his face covered with lather, and
+said:
+
+"Oh, yes.  I forgot to tell you.  Are you the cook sent by Mr.
+Zanzibar?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said Mary.
+
+Aubrey retired to the bathroom again, communicating with me in
+pantomime.
+
+I looked at Mary, and loved her.  We eyed each other in silence for a
+moment.
+
+"Won't you sit down?" I said, looking at her white hair.
+
+"Thank you, but I'll stand."
+
+That settled it.  I didn't care if she stole the shoes off my feet if
+she knew her place as well as that.  Her face beamed; her skin was
+fresh and rosy.  Her blue eyes twinkled through her spectacles.
+
+"Would you," I said, "would you like to take entire charge of two
+orphans?"
+
+She burst into a fit of laughter.
+
+"Is it you and your husband, you mean?"
+
+"It is.  I wish you would come and keep house for us."
+
+"I'd like to, Missis.  I would, indeed."
+
+Again I looked at her and loved her harder.
+
+"Have you any references?" I asked.
+
+"None except the recommendations of the people who have been coming to
+the house for twenty years.  The family are all scattered."
+
+"I have none either," I said.  "Shall we take each other on trust?"
+
+"If you are willing," she laughed.
+
+And so we selected each other, and I am just as much flattered as she
+could possibly be, for neither one so far has given the other notice.
+
+This sketch can only serve to introduce her, as it would take a book to
+do her justice.  She has snow-white hair and a face in which decision
+and kindness are mingled.  She has a tongue which drops blessings and
+denunciations with equal facility.  Born of Irish parents, she belongs
+to the gentry, yet no fighting Irishman could match her temper when
+roused, and the Billingsgate which passes through the dumb-waiter
+between our Mary and the tradespeople is enough to turn the colour of
+the walls.  Yet though I have seen her pull a recreant grocery boy in
+by his hair, literally by his hair, tradesmen, one and all, adore her,
+and do errands for her which ought to earn their discharge, and they
+bring her the pick of the market to avoid having anything less choice
+thrown in their faces when they come for the next order.  She made the
+ice-man grind coffee for her for a week because he once forgot to come
+up and put the ice into the refrigerator.
+
+She went among all the tradespeople, and named prices to them which we
+were to pay if they obtained our valuable patronage.  One little man
+who kept a sort of general store was so impressed by her manner and the
+awful lies she told about the grandeur of her employers that he
+presented her with a pitcher in the shape of the figure of Napoleon.
+Something so very absurd happened in connection with this pitcher some
+three years later that I particularly remembered the time she got it,
+and the little man who gave it to her.
+
+She kept house for seven years in Paris, which explains her reverence
+for food, for we have discovered that the only way to dispose of things
+is to eat them.  Otherwise, in different guises, they return to us
+until in desperation the Angel sprinkles cigar-ashes over what is left.
+She pays all the bills and contests her rights to the last penny, once
+keeping the baker out of his whole bill for five months because he
+would not recognize her claim for a receipted bill for eight cents
+which she had paid at the door.  As to her relation to us in a social
+way, those of you who have lived in the South will understand her
+privileges, when I say that she is a white "Mammy."  Her dear old heart
+is pure gold, and such her quick sympathy that if I want to cry I have
+to lock myself in my room where she won't see me, for if she sees tears
+in my eyes she comes and puts her arms around me and weeps, too,
+without even knowing why, but just with the heavenly pity of one of
+God's own, although before her eyes are dry she may be damning the
+butcher in language which curdles the blood.
+
+She abhors profanity, and never mingles holy names in her sentences
+which contain fluent d's, but being an excellent Catholic enables her
+to accentuate her remarks with exclamations which she says are prayers;
+and as these are never denunciatory her theory is most conscientiously
+lived up to.
+
+In our first housekeeping, our rawness in all matters practical wrung
+Mary's heart.  She had grown up from a slip of a girl in the employ of
+one family, and ours was only her second experiment in "living out."
+As her first employers were people of wealth and with half-grown
+grandchildren when their magnificent home was finally broken up, you
+can imagine the change to Mary of living with newly married people,
+engaged in their first struggle with the world.  But ours was just the
+problem which appealed to the motherly heart of our spinster Mary, for
+she yearned over us with an exceeding great yearning, and of her value
+to us you yourselves shall be the judge.
+
+The first thing I remember which called my attention to Mary's firm
+manner of doing business was one day when I was writing letters in the
+Angel's study.  We had only moved in the day before, and the ink on the
+lease was hardly dry, when I heard a great noise in the kitchen as of
+moving chairs on a bare floor and Mary's voice raised in fluent
+denunciation.  I flew to the scene and saw a strange man standing on
+the table with his hands on the electric light metre over the door,
+while Mary had one hand on his left ankle, and the other on his
+coat-tails.  Her very spectacles were bristling with anger.
+
+"Come down out of that, young feller!" she was crying, jerking both
+coat-tails and ankle of the unhappy man.
+
+"Leggo my leg!" he retorted.
+
+"_I'll_ pull your leg for you," cried Mary, "old woman that I am, more
+than any of your young jades, if you don't drop that metre.  Come down,
+I say!"
+
+"What is the trouble, Mary?" I asked.
+
+"Missis!  The impidence of that brat!  He's come to shut off the
+electric light without a word of warning, and you going to have company
+this blessed night for dinner."
+
+"Here are my orders," said the man, sullenly.  "I'd show them to you if
+you'd leggo my coat-tails," he added, furiously.
+
+"I'll pull them off before I let go," said Mary, grimly.  "A pretty way
+for the New York Electric Light Company to do business _I_ say!  If you
+want a five-dollar deposit from the Missis why didn't you write and
+give notice like a Christian?  Do you suppose we are thieves?  Are we
+going to loot the house of the electric bulbs, and go and live in
+splendour on the guilty sales of them?"
+
+"Let me cut it off according to orders, and I'll go to the office and
+explain, and come back and turn it on for you!" pleaded the man.
+
+But Mary's grasp on leg and coat was firm.
+
+"Not on yer life," she said, derisively.  "You'll come back this day
+week or next month at your own good pleasure, and Mr. Jardine will be
+doing the explaining and the running to the office.  Make up your mind
+that the thing is going to be settled _my_ way, or you'll stay here
+till you do.  _I'm_ in no hurry."
+
+"Make her leggo of me," he said to me.
+
+Mary gave me a look, and I obediently turned my back.  The man slammed
+the little door of the metre, and Mary let go of him.  He climbed down.
+
+"I can turn it off in the basement just as well," he said, with a grin.
+
+I was about to interfere and offer a cheque, but Mary was too quick for
+me.  She took him by the arm, with a "Come, Missis," and marched him
+before her, with me meekly following, to the telephone in the Angel's
+study.
+
+"Now, then, young feller, call up the office!" she commanded.  The man
+obeyed.  Indeed few would have dared to resist.
+
+"Now get away and let the Missis talk to your boss.  Tell him what we
+think of such doings, Missis."
+
+I, too, obeyed her.  I stated the case in firm language.  He
+apologized, he grovelled.  It was all a mistake (Mary sniffed); the man
+had no such orders (Mary snorted).  I could send a cheque at my
+leisure, and if I would permit him to speak to his henchman all would
+be well.
+
+I handed the receiver to a very cowed and surly man, whom Mary
+persistently addressed as "Major."  As he turned from the telephone,
+Mary surveyed him with twinkling eyes.
+
+"Are you going to turn off our electric light, Major?" she said,
+laughing at him.  To my surprise, he laughed with her.  Tradespeople
+always did.
+
+"Not to-day," he said as amiably as though she had been entertaining
+him at tea.  Then she let him out, and went back to her dusting.  She
+looked at me compassionately.
+
+"It's the way that dummed company takes to get people to pay their
+deposits promptly," she said.  "But trust Mary Jane Few Clothes to get
+ahead of a little trick like that!  My, Missis, isn't it hot!"
+
+I went back to my letter-writing feeling somewhat pensive.  It was
+clear that we had a competent person in the kitchen, and as for myself
+it would not disturb me in the least if she managed me, provided she
+dealt as peremptorily with the housework as she handled any other
+difficult proposition.  But with the Angel?  I was not very well
+acquainted with my husband myself, and I was slightly exercised as to
+whether he would bow his neck to Mary's yoke as meekly as I intended to
+do or not.  I seemed to feel intuitively that Mary was a great and
+gallant general in the domestic field, and my mother's thirty years'
+war with incompetent servants made me yearn to close my lips as
+hermetically as an army officer's and blindly obey my general's orders
+with an unquestioning confidence that the battle would be won by her
+genius.  If it were lost, then it would be my turn to interfere and
+criticize and show how affairs should have been managed.
+
+But men, as a rule, have no such intuition, and I wondered about the
+Angel.  How little I knew him!
+
+I was arranging the flowers for the table when the Angel came home.
+When he had gone back to dress, Mary came up to me and in a
+confidential way said:
+
+"Missis, dear, don't tell your father about the electric light till
+after dinner,--excuse me for putting in my two cents, but I always was
+nosey!"
+
+"Tell my father?" I repeated.  My father was in Washington.
+
+"Boss!  Mr. Jardine!" explained Mary.
+
+"Why did you call him my father?  Surely you must know--"
+
+"Pardon me, dear child.  I always call him your father when I'm talking
+to myself, because nobody but your father could be as careful of you as
+that dear man!"
+
+I sat down to laugh.
+
+"You don't believe much in husbands, then?" I said.
+
+"Saving your presence, that I don't.  I believe in fathers, and so I
+always call that blessed man your father.  Will you believe it, Missis,
+he wouldn't let me reach up to take the globes off to clean them, nor
+lift the five-gallon water-bottle when it came in full from the grocer.
+He treats my white hairs as if they were his mother's--God love him!"
+
+I listened to Mary with a dubious mind, divided between admiration of
+the Angel and the intention of telling him not to help her too much,
+for fear, after the manner of her kind, she should discover a delicacy
+of constitution which would prevent her from lifting the water-bottle
+even when it was empty.
+
+"And I'll tell you what I've been doing on the quiet for him to show
+him that I'm not ungrateful.  You know his white waistcoats have been
+done up at the laundry so scandalous that I'd not have the face to be
+taking your money if I were that laundryman, so I've just done them
+myself, and would you take a look at them before I carry one back for
+him to put on?"
+
+I took a look, and they were of that faultless order of work that makes
+you think the millennium has come.
+
+I took one back to where the Angel stood before the mirror wrestling in
+a speaking silence with his tie.  I had not been married long, but I
+had already learned that there are some moments in a man's life which
+are not for speech.  He smiled at me in the glass to let me know that
+he recognized my presence, and would attend to me later.
+
+When the tie was made, I drew a long breath.
+
+"The country is saved once more!" I sighed.
+
+He laughed.  I mean he smiled.  Not once a month does he laugh, and
+always then at something which I don't think in the least funny.
+
+As he took the waistcoat from my hand his face lighted up.
+
+"Now that is something like!" he said.  "I tell you it pays to complain
+once in awhile.  I wrote that laundry a scorcher about these
+waistcoats."
+
+"It does pay," I said.  Then I explained.
+
+"Do you know what I think?" he said.  "I think we've got a regular old
+cast-iron angel in Mary."
+
+"Oh, rap on wood," I cried, frantically reaching out with both hands.
+"Do you want her to spill soup down your neck tonight?"
+
+"I didn't think," he said, apologetically, groping for wood.   "_Now_,
+do I dare speak?"
+
+"Yes, go on.  What do you think of her?"
+
+"I think she is thoroughly competent to deal with the emergencies of a
+New York apartment-house.  This morning just before I went out I heard
+her holding a heart-to-heart talk with the grocer.  It seems that the
+eggs come in boxes done up in pink cotton and laid by patent hens that
+stamp their owner's name on each egg.  For the privilege of eating
+these delicacies we pay the Paris price for eggs.  Now it would also
+seem that these hens guarantee at that price to lay and deliver to the
+purchaser an unbroken, uncracked, wholly perfect egg in the first flush
+of its youth.  But to-day the careless hens had delivered two cracked
+eggs out of one unhappy dozen to Mary.  With a directness of address
+seldom met with in good society, Mary thus delivered herself down the
+dumb-waiter, 'Well, damn you for a groceryman--'"
+
+"Oh, Aubrey!  Did she say that word?"
+
+"She said just that.  'When we are paying a dollar a look at eggs, what
+do you mean by sending me two cracked ones out of twelve?  To be sure
+_somebody_ has been sitting on these eggs, but I'll swear it wasn't a
+hen.'  His reply was inaudible, but he was just going out to his wagon,
+and he was opening up his heart to the butcher boy as I passed.  'I'd
+give five dollars, poor as I am,' he said, 'for one look at that old
+woman's face, for she talks for all the world just like my own mother.'
+And with that he exchanged the two cracked eggs for two perfect ones
+out of another order, and took the good ones in to Mary."
+
+
+"I wonder if it will last," I said to a woman who was envying the fact
+that I could persuade Aubrey to go out with me whenever I wanted him to.
+
+"It _won't_ last!" she declared, cheerfully.  "And it won't last that
+Mr. Jardine will go calling with you evenings.  The clubs will claim
+him within six months, and as for Mary--I'll tell you what I'll do.
+I'll wager you a ten-pound box of candy that within a year you will
+have lost both your husband and your cook."
+
+"Lost my husband," I cried, my face stiffening.
+
+"Oh, I only mean as we all lose our husbands," she explained, airily.
+"I used to have Jack, but I am married now to golf links and the club."
+
+"I'll take your bet," I said.
+
+"You'll lose," she laughed.  "They are both too perfect to last."
+
+"They are not!" I cried.
+
+But when the door closed, I rapped on wood.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THEORIES
+
+If there is anything more delightful than to furnish one's first home,
+I have yet to discover it.  Aubrey says that "moving in goes it one
+better," but his preference is based on the solid satisfaction he takes
+in putting in two shelves where one grew before and in providing
+towel-racks and closet-hooks wherever there is an inviting wall-space
+for them.
+
+But to me, even the list I made out and changed and figured on and
+priced before I made a single purchase was full of possibilities, and
+contained wild flutters of excitement on account of certain innovations
+I wished to try.
+
+"Aubrey," I said one evening as the Angel sat reading Draper's
+"Intellectual Development of Europe," "have you any pet theories?"
+
+"What's that?   Pet theories about what?"
+
+"Housekeeping."
+
+"I don't quite understand.  I've never kept house, you know."
+
+"I mean did your mother keep her house and buy her furniture and manage
+her servants to suit you, or exactly as you would do if you had been in
+her place?"
+
+"Not in the least," said the Angel, laying down his book, all interest
+at once.
+
+"Ah!  I knew it!  Then you _have_ theories!  That's what I wanted to
+bring out.  Now I have theories, too.  One is the rag-bag theory."
+
+"The--?"
+
+"The theory that every housewife must have a rag-bag.  My mother had
+one because her mother did and _her_ mother because _hers_ did, and so
+on back to the English one who probably brought _her_ rag-bag across
+with her.  Ours was made of bed-ticking, and had a draw-string in it
+and hung in the bathroom closet.  Now if you ever tried to lift a heavy
+bag down from a hook and knew the bother of emptying it of neat little
+rolls of every sort of cloth from big rolls of cotton-batting to little
+bundles of silk patches and having to look through every one of them to
+find a scrap of white taffeta to line a stock, then you know what a
+trial of temper the family rag-bag is."
+
+"And you--" said the Angel, who is definite in his conclusions.
+
+"_I_ mean to have a large drawer in a good light absolutely
+_sacrificed_, as some people would call it, to the scraps.  When you
+want a rag or a bone or a hank of hair in our house, all you will have
+to do is to pull out an easy sliding drawer without opening a door that
+sticks, or crawling into a dark corner, or having to light a candle, or
+doing anything to ruffle your temper or your hair.  A flood of
+brilliant sunlight or moonlight will pour into my rag-drawer, and a few
+pawings of your unoccupied hand will bring everything to the top.
+Won't that be joyful?"
+
+Aubrey, who loves to fuss about repairs and is for ever wanting
+material, was so enchanted with the picture I drew that he longed to
+have a cut finger to bind up on the spot.
+
+"Have you any more theories?" he asked, laying Draper on his knee
+without even marking his place.
+
+"A few.  Some are about buying furniture."
+
+"We want everything good," said Aubrey, firmly.
+
+"More than that.  We want _some_ things beautiful.  And some things
+_very_ expensive."
+
+I thought I saw the bank-book give a nervous flop just here.  But
+perhaps it was only Aubrey's expression of countenance which changed.
+
+"For instance, I want no chairs for show.  Every spot intended to rest
+the human frame in our house shall bring a sigh of relief from the
+weary one who sinks into it.  I have already started it by the couch I
+ordered last week for your study.  I went to the man who takes orders
+and said: 'Have you ever read "Trilby"?'  And he said no, but his wife
+had when it was the rage about five years ago.  I had brought a copy on
+purpose, so I read him that paragraph from the first chapter describing
+the studio.  Here it is: 'An immense divan spread itself in width and
+length and delightful thickness just beneath the big north window, the
+business window--a divan so immense that three well-fed, well-contented
+Englishmen could all lie lazily smoking their pipes on it at once,
+without being in each other's way, and very often did!'  He smiled and
+said it made very agreeable reading, to which I replied that I wanted
+one made just like it."
+
+"What did he say?"
+
+"Well, of course he argued.  He wanted to make it a normal size.  He
+wanted to know the size of the doors it would have to go through, and I
+told him it was for an apartment.  As soon as he knew that he wanted to
+make the lower part of cedar to store furs in for the winter.  I said:
+'No, no!  This is a luxury.  There is to be nothing useful about it.  I
+want the whole inside given up to springs!'  He said, 'Turkish?' and I
+said yes, and put in two sets of them.  At that he began to catch the
+spirit of the thing and took an interest.  We argued so over the size
+of it that finally I told him to send out and measure the elevator and
+the door and the room it was to go in and make it just as large as
+those spaces would allow.  So you'll have a divan ten by six.  I wanted
+it bigger, but I couldn't have got it through any front door."
+
+"Why, won't it about fill that little room?" asked my husband, with a
+trace of anxiety in his tone.
+
+"Only about half-way.  There's just room for a little table of books at
+one end of the divan, and I'm going to have a movable electric lamp
+with a ground-glass globe and a green shade to be good for the eyes.
+Your pipe-rack will be on the wall over it.  Then by squeezing a little
+there will be just room for my writing-chair,--you know the one with
+the desk on the arm and the little drawer for note-paper?"
+
+Aubrey got up and came over to where I had my list, and Draper fell to
+the floor unnoticed.
+
+"I never heard anything sound so comfortable," he said.  The Angel is
+always appreciative, and, moreover, is never too absorbed or too tired
+to express it fluently.  That's one of the things which make it such a
+pleasure to plan his comfort.
+
+"Doesn't it sound winter evening-y and snowy outside?" I said.
+
+"I can hear the wind howling," said the Angel.  "What's the next item?"
+
+"Well, now we come to a theory.  Of course I have had no more
+experience than you in buying furniture, but it stands to reason that
+some of the things we buy now will be with us at death.  Some furniture
+stays by you like a murder.  For instance, a dining-room table.  I have
+known some very rich people in my life, Aubrey, but I have seldom seen
+any who grew rich gradually who had had the moral courage to discard a
+dining-room table if it were even decently good.  Have you ever thought
+about that?"
+
+"I can't say that I have, but it is fraught with possibility.  'The
+Ethics of Household Furniture' would make good reading."
+
+"Well, haven't you," I persisted, "in all seriousness, haven't you seen
+some very handsome modern dining-rooms marred by a dinner-table too
+good to throw away, which you were convinced the family had begun
+housekeeping with?"
+
+"Yes, I have!" cried Aubrey.  "You are right, I have.  I thought you
+were jesting at first."
+
+"Well, I am, sort of half-way.  But the sort of dinner-table I want to
+buy is no joke.  It is one which will grace an apartment or a palace.
+We can be proud of it even when we are rich.  Yet it is not showy, or
+one which will be too screamingly prominent.  It is of carved oak with
+the value all in the carving.  It costs--"  Here I whispered the price,
+for to us it was almost a crime to think of it.
+
+The Angel looked sober when my whisper reached him.  But he did not
+commit himself.  I eyed him anxiously.
+
+"But to make up for that outlay, here is the way I have planned the
+rest of the house.  Let's have no drawing-room."
+
+"No drawing-room?  Then where will you receive guests?"
+
+"The room will be there, and people may come into it and sit down, but
+it will not be familiar ground to strangers.  They will find themselves
+in a cheerful room with soothing walls and comfortable chairs.  There
+will be books and magazines.  It will not be a library, for quantities
+of bookcases discourage the frivolous.  It will have no gilt chairs,
+because big men always want to sit in them.  It will have no lace
+curtains, because I hate them.  The piano will be there and most of our
+wedding-presents,--all which lend themselves to the decoration of a
+room which will look as if people lived in it."
+
+"If you put bric-à-brac in it people will call it a parlour in spite of
+you," said the Angel.
+
+"Not at all.  It will have one distinguishing feature which will
+effectually prevent the discriminating from making that mistake.  I
+intend to make the clock on the mantel _go_.  That will settle matters."
+
+"Of course."
+
+"This room will lack the stiffness of a drawing-room and so invite
+conversation, yet will be sufficiently dignified to prevent
+familiarity.  I shall endeavour to invest it with an invitation which
+will practically say to your college friends, 'You may smoke here, but
+you may not throw ashes on the floor.'  Do you see my point?"
+
+The Angel looked thoughtful.
+
+"I hope it will work," he said.
+
+"We can but try it.  I am doing this because I wish our friends to meet
+us together, and I don't approve of this separating men and women,--the
+women remaining alone to gossip while the men go away to smoke.  It is
+too narrowing on us and too broadening on you."
+
+"I like it,--in theory,--but some men are chimneys.  They don't know
+how to smoke when ladies are present."
+
+"They will soon learn!" I declared, stoutly.  "I shall be so attentive
+to their comfort, so ready with an ash-tray, so eager to offer them the
+last cigar in the jar (if I think they have smoked enough) that they
+will notice my slightest cough."
+
+Aubrey waxed enthusiastic.
+
+"An evening spent in that room will be 'An Education in Polite
+Smoking,' won't it?"
+
+"And," I went on, "then when we are rich and want a truly handsome
+drawingroom we can furnish it in pink silk and cupids with a light
+heart, for behold, we will simply move all this comfort I have
+described into a library, and the wear on the furniture will redeem it
+from newness and give it the proper air of age and use.  There is
+nothing more vulgar to my mind than a perfectly new library.  It
+looks--well, you know!"
+
+"It does," said the Angel, with conviction.  "All of that!"
+
+We discussed these theories in detail, made many corrections, and
+finally went down to buy.  But a handsome shop and money in my pocket
+always excite me so that what little common sense I was born with
+instantly departs, and I buy feverishly, mostly things I do not want
+and could not use.  So the Angel adopted a good, safe rule.  When he
+saw my eyes begin to glitter with a "I-must-have-that-or-die"
+expression, he used to take me by the arm and say:
+
+"Now shut your eyes, and I'll get you past this counter."
+
+I have heard of many curious women who do not enjoy housekeeping.  I am
+free to confess that I do not understand why, unless they started out
+in life with the conceited idea that to bend their wonderful brains
+upon the silly problem of keeping a house clean and ordering dinners
+was beneath women of their possibilities on club essays.  I often
+wonder if they attacked the proposition of housekeeping with the
+intention of seeing how much fun there is in it, of how much pleasure
+could be got out of making a home, not merely keeping house, and of
+feeding their conceit with the fuel of a determination to keep house
+better than any woman of their acquaintance.  The simple but
+fascinating problem of how to make each room a little prettier than it
+was last week, would keep even an ingenious woman busy and interested
+in something worth while, and those of us who are sensitive to
+impressions would be spared the truly awful sight of certain
+incongruous rooms in handsome houses.  Oh, if you only knew what people
+say about you--you women who "don't like to keep house!"
+
+But I forgot.  Most women have no sense of humour, and few husbands
+take the intense interest in a home that the Angel does.
+
+America, foreigners claim, is a country almost as homeless as France is
+said to be.  The French have no word for home in their language, but
+they have homes in fact, which is much more worth while.  We Americans
+have the lovely word "Home," but we haven't as a nation the article in
+fact.  Americans have houses, but in truth we are a homeless race.
+Only the unenlightened will contradict me for saying that, and for the
+opinion of the unenlightened I do not care.
+
+I am not sentimental after the fashion of women who send flowers to
+murderers, but I am full of pale and sickly theories as to the making
+of a home, and I am free to confess that it would give me more pleasure
+to hear people say of me, "Mrs. Jardine's husband is the happiest man I
+know," than to have them read on a bronze tablet under a statue in the
+Louvre, "Faith Jardine, Sculptor."  For if more ambitious women would
+devote themselves to making one neglected husband happy the public
+would be spared weak and indifferent pictures, silly and rank books,
+rainy-day skirts in the house, and heaps of other foolishness and bad
+taste, most of which at bottom is not the necessity to work for a
+living, but simply Feminine Conceit.
+
+Of course Aubrey and I made some mistakes in spite of all our
+precautions, for, happily for me, the Angel can be led away by
+enthusiasm, and is not so faultlessly perfect as to be impossible to
+get on with.  I revel in his weaknesses, they are so human and
+companionable, and give me such a feeling of satisfaction when summing
+up my own faults.  We got so much fun out of shopping for the house
+that we dragged out the process to make the delight of it as lingering
+as possible.  I had planned it all out.
+
+My own room was to be pink.  Big pink roses splashed all over the
+cretonne counterpane and valance of the bed.  Plain pink wall-paper
+upon which to hang pictures all in black frames.  Small pink roses
+tumbling on the ceiling and looking as if every moment they would
+scatter their curling petals on the pink rugs on the floor.  The dark
+furniture against the pink walls toned down the rose colour, which
+returned the compliment to the furniture by bringing out the carving on
+bold relief.
+
+The guest-room, on the contrary, was to be pale blue with white
+furniture.  Nothing but gold-framed pictures on the walls and a blue
+rug on the floor.  The chairs were to be upholstered in blue for this
+room, and in pink for mine.  Muslin curtains with full deep ruffles,
+picked out respectively with pink and blue, would flutter at the sunny
+windows, and though simplicity itself, nothing ever struck me as any
+more attractive, for it was all mine--my first house--my first
+housekeeping!  When this dream really came true, I walked around in
+such a dazed condition of delight that I was black and blue from
+knocking myself into things I didn't see.  But even as I did not see
+the obstructions, I did not feel the pain of my bruises, for they were
+all got from my furniture on corners of _my_ house, and thus were
+sacred.
+
+As I gazed on the delicate beauty of my pretty little guest-chamber I
+fell to wondering who would be its first occupant.  Would it be a man
+or a woman?  Would it be Artie Beguelin, the Angel's best man, or my
+sweet friend and bridesmaid, Cary Farquhar?
+
+At any rate, he or she would be welcome--oh, so welcome!  I hoped the
+invisible guest would be happy, and would feel that ours was not a
+compulsory hospitality, with the cost counted beforehand and the
+benefits we expected in return discounted.  No, whoever it was to be
+would be a guest and a friend.  On the wall over the bed hung these
+words illuminated on vellum and framed, for I had always loved them:
+
+  "Sleep sweet, within this quiet room,
+    Oh thou, whoe'er thou art!
+  And let no mournful yesterday
+    Disturb thy peaceful heart,
+  Nor let to-morrow fret thy dreams
+    With thoughts of coming ill,
+  Thy Maker is thy changeless Friend,
+    His love surrounds thee still.
+        Sleep sweet!
+        Good night."
+
+
+Afterward, when my first guest had come and gone, this momentary
+reverie came back to me, and I looked up at this benediction with tears
+in my eyes.
+
+Of course we spent too much money on our house furnishings.  We always
+do, but after all--and here come my theories again.  I would have fine
+table and bed linen.  The Angel did not believe I would stick to it,
+but I did embroider it all myself.  And as to hemming napkins and
+table-cloths--I challenge any nun in any convent to make prettier
+French hems than I put in!  Would I be likely to waste all that labour
+on flimsy napkins or cotton sheets and pillow-cases?
+
+Not at all!  I can find infinitely more pleasure in putting invisible
+stitches into my own first linen than in going to pink teas, and people
+don't get permanently angry if you invite them to dinner, and let them
+eat off hemmed and embroidered damask.  Believe me.  You may send cards
+to six receptions, and get out of six afternoons of misery and
+indigestion by one judiciously arranged dinner--if you don't mix your
+people.  And thus we did.
+
+So I got my linen.  The Angel laughed at another of my theories, but
+when I proved to him that I would really see the thing through, he was
+convinced.  It was on the question of beds.  Our friends professed
+themselves astonished that we contemplated the extravagance of a
+guest-chamber, for here in New York, where rents are so abnormal,
+people economize first of all upon their friends, and I am told that an
+extra bedroom where a chance guest may be asked to remain overnight is
+the exception with people of moderate means.  Such monstrous
+selfishness struck me as appalling.  To provide _only_ for
+ourselves--for our own comfort!  To have no room in all your own luxury
+to share with a friend!  To be obliged to tell the woman whose
+hospitality you have enjoyed in your girlhood: "Now that I am married,
+I have prepared no place for you!  Your kindness to me is all
+forgotten!"
+
+Well, we simply refused.  What if it were a strain on us financially?
+I would rather suffer that than cripple myself spiritually and suffer
+from no pangs of conscience as most New Yorkers do!
+
+However, we managed it, and in this wise.  I said:
+
+"Aubrey, if you are willing, we can save a great deal in this way."
+
+Even at this early stage the Angel always grew deeply attentive when I
+talked of saving anything.
+
+"We can and must order the finest springs and mattresses for the beds,
+for of all the meanness in this world the meanest is to put a bad bed
+in the guest-chamber, and that is where most housekeepers are perfectly
+willing to economize.  But we can and will buy white iron beds with
+brass trimmings for almost nothing,--they are all the same size as the
+fine brass ones,--so that at any time when we find ourselves vulgarly
+rich and able to live up to the dinner-table we shall feel perfectly
+justified in discarding them, and there you are!"
+
+"But how will it look?" said the man.
+
+"How will our bank-account look, if we don't?"
+
+"I know.  But I thought women were afraid of what other women would
+say," said the Angel.
+
+"Now, Aubrey," I said, "If we have economized on ourselves, or rather
+included ourselves in a general scheme of economy in order the better
+to provide for our guests, I think even New Yorkers would hesitate to
+criticize the Jardines' iron beds,--especially if they ever got a
+chance to disport themselves on the Jardines' Turkish springs!"
+
+"There's something in that," said the Angel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+ON THE SUBJECT OF JANITORS
+
+I used to pride myself on being practical and on possessing no small
+degree of that peculiar brand of sense known as "horse."  However, like
+most women inclined to take a rosy view of their virtues and to pass
+lightly over their obvious faults, I know now that I prided myself on
+the one thing in my make-up conspicuous by its absence.  For I am
+luxurious to a degree, and so fond of beauty and grace that I feel with
+the man who said, "Give me the luxuries of life and I will do without
+the necessities."
+
+This explanation is due to any man, woman, or child who has ever lived
+in a New York apartment, and who is moved to follow the fortunes of the
+Jardines further.  Also this conversation took place before some of the
+events already narrated transpired, and while we were still at the
+Waldorf.
+
+"Now, Aubrey," I said, "to begin at the beginning, marriage is supposed
+to perfect existence all around, isn't it?"
+
+"It does," said Aubrey.
+
+"No, now, I am speaking seriously.  It has fed the mental and spiritual
+side of us, why not begin life with the determination to make it oil
+the wheels of daily existence?  Why not bend our energies to avoiding
+the pitfalls of the ordinary mortal, and let _us_ lead a perfect life."
+
+"Very well," said the Angel.
+
+"Now in permitting housekeeping to conquer, most people become slaves
+to the small ills of life, which I wish to avoid."
+
+"Get to the point," said Aubrey, encouragingly, fearing, I suppose,
+that if he did not give the conversation a fillip, I might go on in
+that strain for ever, which would be wearing.
+
+"Well, the point is this.  I've never known what it was to have good
+service in a private house, except abroad.  Now even when people bring
+excellent servants over from London and Paris, they go all to pieces in
+a year.  It's in the air of America."
+
+"Well?" said Aubrey.
+
+"Well, of course we have perfect service here in this hotel, and it
+seems to me that the nearest approach to that would be in one of those
+smart apartment-houses, where everything is done for you outside of
+your four walls.  Then with Mary, who seems to be a delightful
+creature, all we need do is to be careful in the selection of a
+janitor.  Do you follow me?"
+
+"You have not finished," said Solomon.
+
+"Quite true, oh, wise man of the East!  Another of the trials of my
+life has always been to get letters mailed."
+
+"To get letters _mailed_?" said Aubrey.
+
+"To get letters mailed," I repeated, firmly.  "Every woman knows that
+it is no trouble to write them, but the problem of leaving them on the
+hall-table for the first person who goes out to mail, the lingering
+fear when one doesn't hear promptly that the letter was lost or never
+went; the danger of somebody covering them up with papers and sweeping
+them off to be burned; the impossibility of running to the box with
+each one; the impoliteness of refusing the friend who offers to mail
+them permission even to touch them,--oh, Aubrey, really, the chief
+worry of my whole life has been to get letters mailed!"
+
+"The most expensive apartment we looked at had a mail-chute," said my
+husband, thoughtfully, after a moment of silence.
+
+"Well," I hazarded, timidly, "the only difference between a flat and an
+apartment is in the rent."
+
+"That apartment had an ice-box and a sideboard built in, and a mail
+chute," repeated Aubrey.
+
+"Yes, it did, as well as the most respectful janitor I ever saw.  Did
+you notice him?"
+
+"Was he the one who was cross-eyed?"
+
+"Well, yes, I think his eyes weren't quite straight.  But that may have
+been one reason why he was so gentle and deferential.  I have often
+noticed that persons who are afflicted in some painful way are often
+the very kindest and best, as if the spiritual had developed at the
+expense of the physical."
+
+"Well, Faith, if your heart is set on that one we must have it."
+
+"I know the rent is exorbitant, but I intend to get all of my amusement
+and recreation out of my home, so count balls and receptions and
+functions out--or rather count them in the rent," I said, "for instead
+of going to the theatre as we have been doing, I want to give little
+dinners--real dinners to people we love, and give them with a view to
+the enjoyment of our guests rather than that of ourselves.  I want to
+make a fine art of the selection of guests in their relation to each
+other."
+
+"I'd like nothing better," declared Aubrey, "but don't you know that
+you won't be called upon to do much of that sort of thing the first
+winter, for everybody we know will be entertaining us."
+
+"There's one other point I'd like to explain," I said.  "And that is
+that I shall never entertain anybody whom I simply 'feel called upon'
+to entertain, nor, if I like people, shall I count favours with them.
+I shall conform to conventionality simply as a matter of dignity.  It
+is the privilege of your friends to make the first advances to me
+because I am a stranger to most of them.  But I want to make a practice
+of hospitality for my own sake.  I want to see if the open house we
+kept in the South cannot be accomplished in New York.  I never, for the
+good of my own soul, want to grow as cold and calculating as some
+so-called hospitable women whom I have met in the North."
+
+Aubrey looked at me comprehendingly.
+
+"I know," I said, smiling, "that it sounds to a hardened New Yorker
+like yourself about like the interview of a young actress who declares
+that she intends to elevate the stage.  But in my case, I am in the
+position of one who doesn't want the stage to lower her.  I don't want
+to grow cold, Aubrey, and I hope never to allow a friend to leave my
+house at meal-time without at least an invitation to remain and make,
+if necessary, a convenience of us.  What are friends for, I should like
+to know?"
+
+"From the position you have just stated I should think your definition
+of a friend would be 'a man or woman who can be imposed upon with
+impunity.'"
+
+"Let them impose upon me if they want to," I declared, stoutly.  "As
+long as I have respectful service, I will let those I love make a
+door-mat of me!"
+
+"A slightly volcanic door-mat, I should say," observed the Angel.  "You
+would allow yourself to be stamped upon just about as humbly as a
+charge of dynamite, and the remonstrance in both cases would be
+similar."
+
+I could not help remembering this conversation after we had moved in
+and we had been settled by the efforts of the family of the cross-eyed
+janitor.
+
+I never enjoyed anything in my life as I enjoyed moving into our first
+home.  It was on the top floor, overlooking the park from the front
+windows, while the back gave upon a stretch of neat little flower
+gardens with the Hudson shining like a narrow silver ribbon between us
+and the undulating Jersey shore.
+
+Every room was light.  Every room opened on the street, and the
+sunlight came pouring in quite as if it did not know that in most
+apartments the sun is an unexpected luxury.  There were parquet floors
+throughout, and the bathroom was white marble, all except a narrow
+frieze of cool pale green.  The woodwork was daintily carved, the
+dining-room was panelled in oak with two handsome china-closets built
+in.  We had eleven closets with an extra storeroom for trunks in the
+basement, and enough cabinets in the kitchen and butler's pantry to
+stock a hotel, and as a crowning glory the front door did not open
+opposite the bathroom or kitchen as is the case in most apartments, but
+was near the front like the home of a Christian, and the dining-room
+gave into the front room with a largeness of vista which made us feel
+like millionaires.
+
+Does this read like a fairy-tale?
+
+As we surveyed our domain, I felt such a flood of gratitude and pride
+of home sweep over my soul that I said to Aubrey:
+
+"I actually feel like praying."
+
+The Angel smiled an inscrutable smile, the exact meaning of which I did
+not catch, but it was not one of derision.  Rather I should say that it
+had in it a waiting quality, as of a knowing one who intended to give
+thanks after he had tested a meal, instead of a reckless wight who in
+faith called down a blessing on a napkin and salt-cellars.  But my
+gratitude was largely "a lively appreciation of favours to come."
+
+I have no tale of woe to relate of things which did not come in time.
+Our purchases promised for a certain day arrived as scheduled, were
+uncrated on the sidewalk, with Aubrey and me hanging out of the sixth
+floor window to watch them.  The gentle-mannered janitor and his buxom
+daughter were cleaning the last of the windows, and such was the genius
+of fortune and Mary that at three that same afternoon, when the best
+man called to see how we were getting on, there was nothing left to do
+but to hang pictures, so we set him to doing that while we sat around
+in languid delight and bossed the job.  But it was thirsty work, and
+the best man rested often.  Such perfection of planning seemed to
+irritate him, although he is by nature a gentle soul, for he said, "I
+must say you have done well, but I'll bet there is one thing you have
+forgotten."
+
+"Not at all," said Aubrey, who was at college with the best man.
+"There are six siphons on the ice now, and six more under the kitchen
+sink.  The corkscrew is on the mantel."
+
+All the pictures were hung before dinner.  That is, they were hung for
+the first time.  The pictures in our apartment have travelled.  One by
+one they have journeyed from the smoking-room down the long hall,
+stopping a day or two in each room, and all finding a resting-place
+except one, which will not look well in any colour, any spot, on any
+wall, nor in any light.  It was a wedding-present from some one we
+like, or Aubrey would have put his foot through it long ago.  As it is,
+it is under the blue room bed, whence we drag it every once in awhile
+to admire the frame and say, "I wonder if it wouldn't go there."
+
+As long as that picture remains unhung, a vacant wall space in any
+house is full of interest and possibility to us, and if we ever move,
+we shall select a spot for that picture first, and consider the rent
+and plumbing second.
+
+The janitor's manners continued perfect.  Even Mary found no fault with
+him, and as my appreciation for anything is plainly evident in my
+manner, both Mary and the janitor felt that in me they had found a
+friend, and they waxed confidential withal.
+
+One day he came up to clean windows, and when he mentioned the
+"parlour," I said:
+
+"Don't call this room a parlour.  I have neither parlour nor
+drawing-room.  This small room is a smoking-room, and this other is a
+library.  I wanted Mr. Jardine to feel at liberty to smoke all over the
+house."
+
+The janitor looked about him and noticed the lack of gilt chairs and
+lace curtains.
+
+"Will you excuse an old man for speaking, Mrs. Jardine, and not think
+me impertinent if I make free to say that if more young ladies started
+housekeeping with such ideas, homes would be happier.  I make bold to
+say that you will not have trouble in keeping Mr. Jardine at home
+evenings."
+
+I blushed with pleasure at having won the approval of this gentle soul.
+But when I told Aubrey he said:
+
+"Poor old fellow!  I saw his wife to-day.  She weighs well on to four
+hundred, and has the air of an anarchist queen.  She was engaged in
+reducing the agent to his proper level, and _I_ fled."
+
+Evidently the agent conquered, for, alas! within a week we had a new
+janitor,--the opposite of my friend in every respect.  Harris, the new
+janitor, was young, sprightly, self-confident, and an American of the
+type "I'm just as good as you are."  This challenge lay so plainly in
+his eye that almost involuntarily I said, "I know you are," before I
+told him that the elevator squeaked.
+
+I hated him from the moment I saw him, but I gave him an extra large
+fee to bribe, in the cowardly manner of all citizens of the land of the
+free and the home of the brave, a servant to do pleasantly the duties
+he is otherwise paid to do.  He had three little children, and when one
+of them had a birthday I sent them ice-cream and a birthday cake.  When
+his wife fell ill I sent her my own doctor, for her little pale,
+pinched, three-cornered face appealed to me.  She did all the janitor's
+work.  It was her voice at the dumb-waiter instead of his, and once
+Aubrey found her emptying a garbage can nearly as large as she was,
+when he went down to see why Harris didn't answer our bell.  Aubrey
+found Harris asleep.
+
+We discovered these things by degrees, and gradually I came to feel
+that my mail-chute was the only real, continuous luxury we had gained
+with this awful rent.  Still we avoided discussing the matter.  By
+ignoring it, we could keep ourselves deceived a little longer to the
+fact that we were being robbed by our own foolishness.
+
+One day I invited the dearest old lady, over ninety years old, to
+luncheon.  Her daughter was to bring her in her carriage, and I made
+Aubrey promise to be in the house by eleven o'clock in case she needed
+assistance, and I prepared to have a beautiful day.  For weeks we had
+planned for this festival, for it was Mrs. Scofield's ninety-first
+birthday and would probably be her only outing during the winter.  At
+ten o'clock I had word that she felt well enough to come, so I told
+Aubrey to bring over the ninety-one roses he had ordered in honour of
+her birthday.
+
+He came in looking a florist shop.  We arranged them, and waited and
+waited and waited.  At two o'clock, the most disappointed of mortals,
+we sat down to luncheon.
+
+"I am afraid something has happened," I said, and the anxiety and
+disappointment threw me into such a headache that I spent the afternoon
+in a darkened room, and had tea and toast sent in for my dinner.
+
+About eight o'clock Aubrey persuaded me to go out for a little walk, so
+we started.  We had no sooner got outside our door than we began to
+feel impending calamity in the air.  The elevator was not running.
+There was a paper saying so fastened to the bell.  We walked down five
+flights of stairs, occasionally looking at each other ominously.  My
+headache vanished as if by magic.  I felt strong and murderous.
+
+On the table in the hall lay a dozen letters, which had arrived during
+the day, a telegram from Uncle John, asking us to dine at the Waldorf
+and share their box to see Irving and Terry and to sup with them at
+Sherry's that night.  It was then a quarter to nine.  We were not
+dressed, and we were half an hour from the theatre.  There was also a
+note from Mrs. Scofield's daughter saying that they had come at
+half-past twelve, but found no hall-boy, no janitor, and the elevator
+not running, so, after vainly trying to communicate with us, they had
+been obliged to go home again.
+
+I simply wept with rage and mortification.  Aubrey started for the
+basement with me at his heels.  I felt that the Angel could not cope
+alone with such a situation.  We found Mrs. Harris pale, trembling, and
+apologetic.  She said her husband was not there.
+
+Aubrey turned away breathing vengeance.
+
+"Aubrey," I said, firmly, "Harris is in that room."
+
+"No, no, Mrs. Jardine!  Indeed he is not!" insisted the little woman.
+
+"I am sorry for you, Mrs. Harris," I said, "but you must allow me to
+see for myself."  And with that I made as if to pass her, but Aubrey
+held me back.
+
+"I'll go," he said.
+
+He went and found Harris calmly reading the newspaper, with his feet on
+the mantel.
+
+"Why isn't the elevator running?" demanded Aubrey.
+
+"Because the hall-boy left this morning, and there was nobody to run
+it," said the man, impudently keeping his seat, with his hat on, and
+not even putting his feet on the floor.
+
+"Is it broken?" asked my husband.
+
+"It is not.  I turned the power off, that's all."
+
+"Why didn't you run it yourself?" asked Aubrey.
+
+"It isn't my business.  That's why, young feller.  Now you know, don't
+you!"
+
+"Don't you dare speak to my husband in that manner," I broke in.
+Aubrey shook his head at me.  It was cruel of him, for I do love a
+fight.
+
+"You come out this minute and start that elevator," said Aubrey.
+
+"I'll do nothing of the sort.  You'll walk up those five nights of
+stairs this night," said the janitor.  Oh, how I wished I had that fee
+back!
+
+Mrs. Harris plucked imploringly at my skirt.
+
+"Harris, aren't you ashamed of yourself?" I said.  "Look at your poor
+wife just out of bed, and you have lost this good place by this day's
+work.  You and your family will not know where to lay your heads within
+a week."
+
+"And how do you know that?  I'll keep this place as long as I please.
+_I_ stand in with the agent.  I suppose you think because you've been
+good to the children that you can run me, but let me tell you that
+you've not done half that you should!  So you just shut up and go back
+where you belong."
+
+Aubrey made a leap for him, but Mrs. Harris threw herself between them
+and I fastened myself to Aubrey's coat-tails.  This was more than I had
+bargained for.
+
+"No, Aubrey, come.  Let us once for all declare our independence.  For
+some time I have suspected that there was collusion between janitors
+and agents.  Now let's get to the bottom of it."
+
+By holding out such a prospect to him, I got the Angel up-stairs, where
+we poured forth our souls in a letter to the agent.
+
+He called, listened to us with polite incredulity, and said he would
+hear Harris's side, as if he wished to judge impartially between two
+criminals.
+
+We held on to ourselves while he consulted the gentleman below stairs.
+When he came back he said:
+
+"Harris denies everything.  Now who am I to believe?"
+
+For once the Angel rose to the occasion.
+
+"Mr. Jepson, you may believe whom you please if you have no more
+decency than to put the word of a gentleman against that of a drunken
+servant.  You have violated the terms of our lease, and unless Harris
+is dismissed inside of a week our apartment is at your disposal."
+
+"Very well, Mr. Jardine," said Jepson, "if you insist on our dismissing
+a janitor for his first offence without even giving him a second
+chance, then there is nothing to do but to agree to your demand."
+
+Aubrey bowed in a truly haughty manner.  The Angel!
+
+"I so insist," he said.  The agent left us.
+
+"Aubrey," I said, thoughtfully, "we have gained a gallant victory over
+the janitor, but I fear the battle with the agent will be the bloodiest
+of our campaign."
+
+But we looked forward hopefully.  Like all man-eating monsters, having
+once tasted human blood, we thirsted for more.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE ANGEL AND THE AGENT
+
+At the risk of causing the gentle reader to despise us, I feel in duty
+bound to set forth the joys and sorrows of our first housekeeping about
+as they occurred.  By that I mean that I intend to take the keen edge
+from our griefs for kindness' sake and to illuminate our joys a little
+beyond the stern realities as we found them, in order to permit the
+reader to understand the colour of the Paradise that the Angel and I
+found in each other.  If, therefore, I do not burst into tears at the
+moment when any well-regulated woman would, lay it, O gentle reader, at
+the door of the Angel, whose deep-seeing understanding not only could
+comprehend such a grief as that of parting with my dog, but which also
+was capable of sympathizing with suitable violence over a gown which did
+not fit or the polite malice of an afternoon visitor.
+
+If I add that when I went into a fury over nothing at all the Angel never
+attempted to stop me or to pooh-pooh the cause, but permitted me to
+mangle the whole subject until it lay a disorganized, dismembered, wholly
+unrecognizable mass at my triumphant feet, I feel reasonably sure that I
+shall have proved to every woman his right to his title.
+
+The knowing ones will naturally scorn the method of reasoning by which we
+arrived at conclusions, but I have found that nothing is more diverting
+or delightful than to go blundering into absurd predicaments, mentally
+hand in hand, for the Angel never says "I told you so."  That sting being
+removed and all three in this happy family, Mary, the Angel, and I, all
+being rather handsomely endowed with a sense of humour, it is a constant
+source of enjoyment to look back and consider the virulence and contagion
+of our ignorance and to count the bruises by which we became wise.
+
+One evening at ten o'clock we came in from making a call and found the
+elevator-boy in his shirt-sleeves washing the hall floor.  I asked him if
+it wasn't a little early to be doing such a thing, as people were still
+going and coming, and he said he was acting under Mr. Jepson's orders.
+Jepson was the agent.
+
+We said we would remonstrate, and we wrote a letter to Jepson asking him
+to have the hall cleaned after twelve o'clock at night and before six
+o'clock in the morning.  He wrote back that, after consulting the
+convenience of all the people in the house, he had decided on eight in
+the morning and ten at night, as everybody was at breakfast at the first
+hour and that ten was the freest hour for the halls at night.  He added
+that the gentleman on the first floor went fishing at six every morning,
+and had complained of having the halls washed at that hour, as he was
+inconvenienced thereby.
+
+A few days later we met Jepson on the street, and Aubrey stopped him and
+said:
+
+"There are several matters about the house I wish you would look into,
+Mr. Jepson."
+
+"Now look here, Mr. Jardine, if you expect me to run that whole
+apartment-house to suit you, you are going to be mistaken."
+
+"For whose comfort and convenience is it run?" I broke in before Aubrey
+could stop me.
+
+"For mine, madam!  I arrange everything outside of your four walls."
+
+"Then we have no rights as to entrance, elevator, and our upper hall?"
+asked Aubrey.
+
+"None, sir!"
+
+I pulled the Angel away.
+
+"Now, Aubrey," I said, "_I_ have had an apartment in Paris, and I know
+what the power of the concierge is.  But if you think for one minute that
+I am going to submit to such impertinence here in America, you never were
+more mistaken in your life."
+
+"What do you intend to do?" asked my husband, with the very natural and
+perfectly excusable interest a man takes when he sees his wife donning
+her war-paint.
+
+"The trouble with me is that I am too agreeable," I went on, firmly.  The
+Angel never flinched even at that statement.  "I am too polite.  We ask
+for our rights as if we were requesting favours."
+
+"Is it our right to say when the halls shall be cleaned?" asked Aubrey.
+
+"Well, I leave it to you as a business man.  There is a difference of
+eight hundred dollars a year in the rent between the first floor and
+ours.  If we pay the highest rent shouldn't our wishes be considered
+first?"
+
+"Eight hundred dollars' worth first!" agreed Aubrey.
+
+"Well, now I'll tell you what I think we would better do, and see if you
+don't agree with me.  To tell the truth, I am getting a little sick of
+the tyranny of agents and janitors, and I propose to see if by making a
+firm stand we cannot establish a precedent for the rights of tenants."
+
+"Don't go to law," said Aubrey, "for every law in New York State seems to
+favour agents and janitors.  I've conducted too many cases not to know."
+
+"We won't go to law.  We will use common sense.  It vexes me to hear
+everybody telling what abuses they stand in New York apartments, and not
+one of them has the courage to make a fight for liberty.  An Englishman
+wouldn't stand it for one minute, but we Americans are cowards about
+'scenes' and 'fusses' and such things, and year by year our rights are
+passing from our hands into the hands of foreigners and the lower
+classes, who already rule us because they don't mind a fight."
+
+"True," said Aubrey.
+
+Much flattered by his approval, I proceeded more calmly.  It always puts
+me in a heavenly temper not to be opposed.
+
+"Now we will give this Jepson person one more chance.  If he abuses his
+authority or tramples on even the fringe of our rights, we will revolt."
+
+"Good!" cried Aubrey, perfectly willing to become enthusiastic over an
+encounter not in the immediate future.  But his peaceful disposition once
+roused, and my inflammable nature crawls into the darkest corner under
+the bed to escape the sight of the consequences.
+
+It came to be the first week in October without anything more irritating
+happening than that all our protests had been disregarded, and we picked
+our way through sloppy halls and dismissed our guests with forced jests
+about bathing suits being furnished by the agent for them to reach the
+street door in safety, and all such things, keeping up a proud front, but
+secretly mortified almost to death, for anybody would know from our
+location that we were paying a high rent, and then to think--
+
+However--
+
+On this early October morning we found frost on the windows, and,
+although we had no thermometer, we knew that we were cold.  We hurried
+out into the dining-room and lighted the gas-logs.  They were new, and
+inside of five minutes we had every window in the house open and
+handkerchiefs to our noses.  We said we would stand it and burn the new
+off, but we have lived here two years and the new is still on.  So then
+we said we must have heat.  This was before Janitor Harris left, so
+Aubrey, after ringing in vain for half an hour, went down and told him to
+make a fire in the furnaces.  Harris said we were to have no heat until
+the fifteenth of November.  It was a rule of all apartment-houses.
+Aubrey said, "Nonsense!"  But when he came up-stairs Mary confirmed the
+janitor.  She said it was a rule in New York.
+
+We said nothing, but we felt that this was the time for our declaration
+of independence.
+
+First we bought thermometers for every room.
+
+Then Aubrey looked up the law.
+
+In all the bedrooms the mercury stayed at forty-nine until noon, then it
+got to fifty-one.  At seven that night it dropped to forty-five, and in
+the morning all the windows were frosted again.
+
+Aubrey's law partner was extremely interested in all our plans, for he
+also lived in an apartment and wanted heat, but knew better than to ask
+for it.  Our lease was so worded that we were to have "heat when
+necessary."  Our rights hung upon when the agent, who was five miles
+away, or the owner, who was in Florida, should agree upon how cold we
+were to be allowed to grow before thawing us out.  Then, carefully
+planning the campaign, Aubrey wrote letters and had interviews with the
+agent, in which he committed himself in the presence of witnesses and on
+paper until, on the afternoon of the third day of our cold storage,
+Aubrey wrote to the agent saying that if we did not have heat within
+twenty-four hours, we should go to a hotel and stay until they chose to
+give it to us, and take it out of the rent.  This letter evidently
+tickled one of the clerks in the agent's office to such an extent that he
+called Aubrey up by telephone and said he had done the only thing
+possible under the circumstances to bring the company to book.  This
+approval pleased Aubrey, and he asked the man's name.  It was Brooks.
+
+We all felt that Brooks was a gentleman.
+
+"They will _never_ let us do _that_, Aubrey," I said.
+
+"They will think we are bluffing!" said the Angel, with quiet conviction.
+
+"Bluffing!" I cried.  "Do they think we won't go if they don't give us
+heat?"
+
+"They little know _you_, do they?" said Aubrey, patting the sleeve of my
+sealskin, for I wore it all day now.  I put it on when I got up.
+
+We waited the twenty-four hours, and then as no notice had been taken of
+our letter we calmly packed a handbag, bade Mary good-bye,--she had the
+gas range to keep warm by,--and much to her delight we went down to the
+Waldorf.  But not to our old luxurious quarters.  We took a room and a
+bath at five dollars a day.  We were doing this from stern principle, and
+we wanted a reasonable case.
+
+I have never flattered myself privately that I am a particularly
+agreeable woman, but I can truthfully say that we were extremely popular
+at the Waldorf, for in some manner it had leaked out that we were making
+a test case on the "heat before the 15th," and everybody we knew who
+lived in apartments called to see if we were really there, and some who
+didn't know us sent word to us or walked by to look at us, as if we were
+performing animals.  The name of Jardine was paged through the corridors
+and billiard-room and cafe until we had a personal acquaintance with
+every menial in the hotel.  It cost us a good deal to get away, I
+remember.
+
+All these first-mentioned nice persons encouraged us, and slapped Aubrey
+on the back and called him "old chap," much to his annoyance (for the
+Angel hates familiarity from chance acquaintances), and said we were
+doing the right thing and God-blessed-us and wanted us to promise to let
+them know how we came out.
+
+We said nothing, but we could see that not one among them all but
+expected either a lawsuit or that we would be obliged to back down and
+pay for this foolhardy defiance of the despot out of our own pockets.
+
+Each day we went out to the apartment and examined the thermometers and
+took signed statements as to the degree they registered.  We had notified
+the agent that we would not return until it was sixty-eight Fahrenheit in
+the bedrooms.
+
+On the afternoon of the third day the weather had moderated to such an
+extent that it was sixty-eight, so I stayed while Aubrey went down to the
+Waldorf for the bill and our bag.  On his return he proudly exhibited a
+receipted bill for $27.
+
+As no reply had been received to our letter and no one had been sent to
+see us, we felt a truly justifiable pride in the little surprise we had
+for Jepson when on the first of November the Angel sent a cheque for
+November rent, less $27, together with the now famous receipted bill.
+
+If we felt that we had been ignored by our agent hitherto, we had no
+cause for complaint after the receipt of that bill and cheque.  In fact,
+as I told Aubrey, Jepson did not have time to use a paper-knife on the
+envelope,--he must have torn it open with feverish fingers,--for the
+telephone-bell jingled madly before breakfast when the office "wanted to
+know the meaning of this," and when the Angel rang off without any reply,
+poor old Jepson came up to the apartment out of breath.
+
+We got plenty of attention after _that_!
+
+Jepson was at first quite confident--even patronizing.
+
+"Why, don't you know, Mr. Jardine, we can't allow any such absurd thing
+as this to go on--not for a minute."
+
+"Ah," said Aubrey.  "What do you propose to do about it?"
+
+"I propose to leave this--this--er--bill and cheque with you and collect
+the full amount of the rent."
+
+"I don't envy you the process," said my husband.
+
+"Oh, well, I imagine there will be no trouble about it.  We know our
+rights."
+
+"Has it ever occurred to you that we might know ours?" said Aubrey.
+
+"Yes, certainly.  But you know, Mr. Jardine, we are agents for a large
+number of the best apartment-houses in New York, and we have not given
+heat to any one so far."
+
+"I only live in this one," said Aubrey.  "It does not interest me in the
+least what temperature other of your tenants prefer.  I shall have this
+apartment warm when _I_ think it is cold."
+
+"Well, but--I understand how you feel, but--no one ever did such a thing
+as this before in the whole course of my thirty-five years' experience."
+
+"I can quite believe it," said Aubrey, thinking of the people we knew who
+suffered without a protest.
+
+"Then you can imagine my surprise this morning to receive this," said
+Jepson.
+
+"I can quite imagine it," returned my husband, with an irony wasted on
+Jepson, but delightful to me.
+
+"Well," said our visitor, rising, "I hope you will think better of it and
+send me a cheque for the full amount.  It will save unpleasantness."
+
+"I anticipate unpleasantness from my past experience with you," said the
+Angel, "and that is every cent you will get from me for November rent."
+
+"Then we shall sue you, Mr. Jardine.  Doubtless you would be embarrassed
+to be sued for twenty-seven dollars."
+
+"It wouldn't embarrass me to be sued for twenty-seven cents," said
+Aubrey, cheerfully, for he always expands in good nature when the other
+man shows signs of temper.
+
+"Do you expect us to sue?" asked the astonished agent.
+
+"Here is my defence," said Aubrey, pleasantly, drawing a bundle of law
+papers from his pocket.  "My partner and I have been at work on this case
+for a fortnight."
+
+Jepson sat down again suddenly and unwound his neck-scarf.  The Angel
+does look gentle.
+
+"I didn't think--" he began and stopped, but Aubrey helped him out.
+
+"You didn't think several things, Mr. Jepson.  You didn't think I meant
+it when I said I must have heat.  You didn't think I meant it when I
+wrote you that I would go to a hotel if you didn't give it to me.  You
+didn't think I would resent your paying no attention to our requests
+about cleaning the halls.  You didn't think I intended to live in this
+apartment to suit my own comfort and convenience and not yours.  You
+didn't think I could force you to live up to the terms of our lease,
+which says 'heat when necessary.'  But I intend to give you an
+opportunity right now to change your mind about several things."
+
+Jepson dropped his hat on the floor and fumbled for it.
+
+"I'll take the matter up with the president of our company," he said.
+
+"Do," said Aubrey, cordially.
+
+The next morning while Aubrey was down-town the president of the real
+estate company called.
+
+"Now, Mrs. Jardine," he said, "I just thought I would drop in while your
+husband was away to discuss this little difficulty in a friendly way and
+see if you and I couldn't come to some arrangement by which both parties
+will be satisfied."
+
+"Yes?" I said.
+
+"You see, Mrs. Jardine, you as a lady will realize that your husband took
+a very high-handed way,--in fact, I may say it was the most high-handed
+proceeding I have ever heard of in all my business career."
+
+"Yes?  I suppose it must have astonished you as much as it amazed us to
+discover that we were to be heated by date instead of by temperature."
+
+"Er--er well!  Of course, you didn't know, but you must understand that
+that rule obtains among all agents in New York."
+
+"So we heard," I said, indifferently.
+
+"You know that?"
+
+"Oh, certainly."
+
+"Did you know what method Mr. Jardine was about to pursue to force us to
+heat your apartment before any one else asked for heat?"
+
+"I suggested it to him," I said, gently.
+
+"You sug--Well, of course.  Hum!  I see."
+
+"And as for none of the other tenants wanting heat, every family in the
+house asked for it.  The lady on the third floor has a five-weeks-old
+baby, and, as you know, there are no gas-logs in any of the bedrooms."
+
+"Well," said the president, rising, "I must look into this.  I will take
+the matter up with the owners."
+
+"Good morning," I said.  "I will tell Mr. Jardine that you called."
+
+"Yes, do," he said, hurriedly putting on his hat, and then taking it off
+again.  "Good morning.  Mr. Jardine will hear from me."
+
+"I hope so," I said to myself as Mary closed the door.  "We never have
+before."
+
+The owners called next, singly and in couples.  We were delighted to meet
+them, for we were convinced that we never would have had the pleasure of
+their acquaintance under any other circumstances.
+
+After more interviews and letters than any $27 ever occasioned before, we
+finally received a letter stating that our claim had been allowed, and
+they enclosed a receipt in full for November's rent.
+
+Nobody believed us when we told them, and we nearly wore the letter out
+exhibiting it.  It is worn at the folding places now from much handling,
+like an autograph letter of Lincoln's or Washington's.
+
+During the following year a new firm of agents took possession of us, who
+knew us not, so that the next October, when we wanted heat, the same
+patronizing manner greeted the Angel when he telephoned for permission to
+have the janitor light the furnaces.
+
+"Oh, no.  Oh, no, Mr.--er--Really, we couldn't consider such a request,"
+came a voice.
+
+"Look here," said Aubrey.  "I am the man who went to the Waldorf last
+year when the agent refused us heat and took twenty-seven dollars out of
+the rent.  You may have heard of me."
+
+"What name, sir?  Oh, Jardine!  Yes, Mr. Jardine, you shall have heat
+within an hour."
+
+The next morning the janitor--also a new one by the way--told the Angel
+that he got a telephone message from the agent to start a fire in the
+furnace if he had to tear off wooden doors and burn them!
+
+"All of which goes to show," said Aubrey to me, "that somebody ought to
+write a book on 'The Value of the Kicker.'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+HOW WE TAMED THE COOK
+
+Second only to the skill required in managing a husband is the diplomacy
+necessary in the art of living with one's cook.  Therefore let the
+unmarried pass this over, feeling that the time for them to read it is
+not yet, but let those who have a cross-grained, crotchety, obstinate, or
+bad-tempered cook take this to a quiet corner and hear my tale.  While it
+may not be exactly your experience it cannot fail to touch a responsive
+chord, for whether you have already had a spoiled cook or not, rest
+assured that you will have one some day, and do not scorn to make her the
+subject of deep and earnest study and the object of diplomatic
+negotiations.
+
+In our case Mary was old and obstinate, but her virtues were too many to
+dismiss her without valiant efforts made to reform her in one or two
+particulars.  It is, alas! but too true, that perfection does not exist,
+especially in cooks.  But as even her failings leaned to virtue's side we
+bore and bore with her, making light of our inconveniences, and
+pretending not to notice that we could never make her do anything that
+she had not wanted to do beforehand.  It was a good deal of a strain on
+us sometimes, for we are self-respecting folk, with excellent opinions of
+ourselves.
+
+But among her good points was an absolute reverence for food.  She never
+wasted a mouthful, even saving the crusts she cut from the toast to grind
+for breading and doing all the thrifty things one would do oneself, but
+which no cook ever born is expected to do nowadays.  She had lived some
+years in Paris, for one thing, and for another,--"Missis, I always
+believe that them that wastes--wants.  I've seen it too many times to
+want to run the risk."
+
+Mary is a character, but this theory of hers she carried to an extreme,
+as you shall hear.
+
+Owing to our respect for Mary's white hairs, the dinner-hour was as
+changeable as a weathercock.  We dined anywhere from seven to nine, and
+soothed each other's irritation by calling ostentatious attention to the
+delicacy and perfection of each dish as it came on the table.  Why
+shouldn't each be perfect, forsooth, when no amount of coaxing or
+persuading, no amount of instructions beforehand or hints or orders could
+make that cook of ours lift a finger toward dinner until we both were in
+the house with hungry countenances and expectant demeanours?  We even
+tried telephoning her from down-town that we were on the way and would be
+at home in an hour.  When we came in at the end of that hour and said:
+
+"Mary, is dinner ready?" the answer was always:
+
+"No, dear child, but it will be in a minute."
+
+At first we believed her and hurried to get ready, but as ten, twenty,
+thirty minutes passed and no signs of soup appeared, we used to take
+turns strolling carelessly into the kitchen as if to see what time it
+was, to investigate the progress of dinner.  If we came in at seven we
+got it at eight.  There was no way apparently of circumventing her.  She
+would have her own way.
+
+Once the Angel said:
+
+"Mary, didn't we telephone you that we wanted dinner just as soon as we
+came in?"
+
+"Yes, sir!"
+
+"Well, wasn't it six o'clock when we telephoned?"
+
+"Yes, sir, but I just thought maybe you would be delayed or the car would
+run off the track or you'd stop to talk to some friends, so I wouldn't
+begin to cook until I clapped my two eyes on you."
+
+At first we used to laugh and say that it was her respect for food.  Then
+it worked on our tempers and grew anything but funny.  It got to be
+exasperating, infuriating, maddening.
+
+"Now, Aubrey," I said, "it has come to the battle with the cook.  Shall
+we submit to petty tyranny or shall we strike?"
+
+"I'll tell you what," said the Angel.  "I haven't quite made up my mind
+whether Mary is really amenable to kindness or whether she takes us for
+suckers."
+
+"Oh," I gasped.  I had never taken myself for a "sucker" before, and even
+in such good company as that of my husband it gave me a jar to hear the
+possibility mentioned.
+
+"I am convinced of one thing," he went on, "Mary has been badly spoiled,
+and, while I have no objection to her ruling us in any way she likes, I
+am going to compel her to obey orders when she gets them."
+
+"Oh, be careful!" I cried.
+
+"I'm going to.  But first I am going to investigate the labyrinths of her
+mind.  If it is that she respects food more than she does our feelings,
+I'll do one thing.  If it is that kindness won't work, I'll try severity.
+But I'm going to make that old woman obey me and have dinner on time."
+
+The Angel delivered this alarming ultimatum without raising his voice and
+with no more emphasis than he would use in saying:
+
+"May I trouble you for the salt?"
+
+I leaned back and looked at him.
+
+"As if you could be severe with any one, you Angel!"
+
+From which remark the knowing can easily deduce the length of time we had
+been married.
+
+It was then ten minutes to eight.  We had come in at six, and at five we
+had telephoned her to have dinner promptly at seven.
+
+"I hope you had a good tea," said Aubrey, looking at the clock.
+
+"I did.  It isn't that I am hungry.  I'm mad," I answered, genially.
+
+"I am not mad.  I am hungry," said Aubrey.
+
+"Being hungry for a man is the same as being mad for a woman," I observed.
+
+Aubrey grinned.
+
+"Now," he said, mysteriously.  "Don't eat any dinner to-night, and follow
+my lead in everything."
+
+"Don't eat any dinner!" I cried, in a whisper.  "I am starv--"
+
+"Hush," he whispered.  "You said you weren't hungry."
+
+Although we were only ten feet away from her and in plain view, Mary
+struck the Roman chime of bells, by which she always announces dinner.
+
+As we took our seats the clock struck eight.  The table was a dream of
+loveliness.  Wedding-silver, wedding-glass, wedding-linen graced it at
+every turn, for Mary always decorates for us as for a banquet.
+
+Never has the fragrant odour of soup assailed me as it did on that
+particular night.  Mary hovered around, watching to see how we liked it.
+We tasted it, and laid our spoons down.  We talked languidly, without
+noticing her.
+
+"What's the matter with the soup?" she finally demanded when she could
+stand it no longer.  We looked up as if surprised.
+
+"Why, nothing," said Aubrey.  "I don't care for it.  That's all.  Take it
+away."
+
+"It will do nicely for to-morrow night," said Mary.
+
+At that Aubrey dropped his entire cigarette into his and I put a spoonful
+of salt into mine.
+
+"Isn't it good, Missis?" asked Mary of me.
+
+"I don't know," I said, wearily.  "I'm too tired to eat."
+
+"Take it away," said Aubrey again.
+
+"My poor dear child!" cried Mary.  "Too tired to eat!  But eating will do
+you good.  Taste a bit!  Try it, Missis dear!"
+
+"No, I don't seem to care for it, and I was very hungry at seven o'clock.
+Don't you remember, Aubrey, I said coming up in the elevator how hungry I
+was?"
+
+"I remember," said my husband.  "But you are just like me.  If you don't
+have your meals at a certain time your appetite goes."
+
+At that Mary lifted her head and looked at us through her spectacles.
+Never were four more innocent eyes to be met with than ours.  We looked
+at her calmly until she lowered her gaze.  It was not an impudent nor a
+defiant look she gave us.  It was a trial of wills.  Our two against her
+one.
+
+She removed the soup without more ado, and brought in a broiled chicken.
+Oh, oh!  Shall I ever forget it!  I was so hungry by that time that I
+could have bitten a piece out of my plate.
+
+Mary stood by with a face as anxious as if she were standing by the
+death-bed of her child.
+
+Aubrey lifted it with the carving-fork, looked at me, and said:
+
+"Do you feel as if you could eat a little bit of this?"
+
+A little bit!  I felt as if I could have snatched it in my paws and run
+growling to a corner to devour the whole of it and to bury the bones for
+the next day.
+
+"No," I said, wearily, leaning my head on my hand to hide my countenance.
+"But you eat some, dear."
+
+Aubrey laid down the carving-fork.
+
+"No, I don't care for any."
+
+"What time did you have your luncheon, dear?" I asked, anxiously.
+
+"At half-past twelve.  I had an appointment with Squires at one."
+
+"And what did you have?" I continued, for Mary's face was expressive of
+the liveliest horror.
+
+"A club sandwich and a glass of beer."
+
+Mary looked at the clock.  It was half-past eight.
+
+"Oh, my dear!" I said, mournfully.  "It is no wonder you can't eat.  Your
+stomach is too exhausted to feel hunger."
+
+Mary ran around the table for no reason at all.  She took the cover off
+the best silver dish.  It was a dish of fresh peas cooked with onions and
+lettuce.  Petits pois à la paysanne!  I had taught her myself!  I simply
+glared at it.  To this day I can smell those onions!
+
+"If I could have had those at seven o'clock," said Aubrey, sadly, "I
+could have eaten every one of them.  They look delicious, Mary, but I
+really--no, don't urge me!  Take the dinner off."
+
+"Oh, boss dear, if you'd just take a lick at them!" implored Mary.  "Just
+one lick--there's a handsome man!"
+
+Aubrey bit his lips.  I was trembling on the verge of hysterical laughter.
+
+Mary implored in vain.  With our famished eyes on the peas and chicken we
+saw them disappear through the swinging door.  Mary in her agony was
+talking aloud.
+
+"Keep it up!" whispered the Angel.  "This will fetch her!  She's ready to
+cry."
+
+"Oh, but Aubrey," I moaned.  "I'm ready to gnaw the napkin and eat my
+slippers.  Please come and tighten my belt!"
+
+"I know now how explorers and castaways feel," murmured the Angel.  "For
+heaven's sake, what comes next?"
+
+"Asparagus!" I wailed.  "Fresh asparagus.  I paid ninety cents for it!
+And she's cooked it with her white sauce--oh!"
+
+The door opened and Mary, with pink cheeks and dancing eyes, brought in
+and deposited before me my favourite dish.  Asparagus on toast.  I looked
+at it longingly, feverishly!  I was famishing.  My throat was dry and my
+eyes had a savage glare.  I had heard of men going mad for want of food.
+I know now how they felt.
+
+At first I could not speak.  I was obliged to swallow violently.
+
+"There!" cried Mary, triumphantly.  "You can't pass that up!"
+
+"Alas!" I sighed, shaking my head.  I looked at her and felt simply
+murderous.  That white-haired old woman's obstinacy in not giving us our
+dinner on time was the cause of all my misery.  I resolved to rub it in.
+Her face was a study.
+
+"Did you ever," I said, mournfully, "see me refuse asparagus before?"
+
+"You're never going to refuse it!" exclaimed Mary, incredulously.
+"Missis!  I used a pint of cream, to say nothing of the butter!  Why,
+it's a sin!  It's a mortal sin in you not to try it!  See, Missis, let me
+put a little on your plate.  I'll feed it to you like as if you were a
+baby!  I will indeed!"
+
+"No," I said, clutching at the table-cloth to keep from falling upon that
+dish of asparagus and shovelling it down my throat in huge
+handfuls,--"no, I couldn't!  Mary!  I am too weak, really, I think I am
+starving!"
+
+I leaned back and closed my eyes.  The clock struck nine.
+
+"You've had nothing to eat all day!" cried Mary.  "You had only a bite
+for your lunch, and that was eight hours ago!  Oh, Missis, dear!  Ain't I
+the mean dog!  Let me make you a cup of tea!  Missis dear!  In the name
+of God eat something!  Do!"
+
+"No," I said.  "I have always been this way.  If I go five minutes over
+the time when I expect my dinner, I feel just this way.  I can't eat."
+
+With which astonishing lie, I leaned back as if death were already
+looming up in the distance.
+
+Mary made one more attack.  Salad was the Angel's weak point as asparagus
+was mine, and Mary always made a dream of beauty out of it.  She scorned
+"_fatiguer la laitue_" as the French do.  Instead she kept it in a bowl
+of water until thoroughly "awake," as she called it.  Then carefully
+examining each leaf separately, she tied them in a wet cloth and laid
+them "spang on the ice," which course of treatment rendered them so crisp
+that to cut them with a sharp salad-fork was always to get a little
+dressing splashed in one's eye.  Furthermore she arranged them in the
+best cut-glass dish in symmetrical rows with the scarlet tomatoes tucked
+invitingly in the centre.  She presented us with such a dish on this
+evening.  Then when Aubrey (who will be remembered when he is no more,
+not for his moral qualities nor for his domestic virtues, but for the
+skill with which he used to mix a salad dressing) went to work and
+prepared one from tarragon, vinegar, oil, Nepaul pepper, paprika, black
+and cayenne pepper, to say nothing of plenty of salt,--words fail me!  I
+simply pass away at the recollection.
+
+I have never been able to make up my mind whether Mary suspected us or
+not.  Of course we overdid the part, but it was a physical necessity.  I
+can go without a thing altogether, but I cannot be moderate.  I really
+thought I was not hungry until Aubrey told me not to eat, and that, of
+course, was enough to make any woman ravenous.  If he had told me "to
+buck up and eat a good dinner," of course I could only have nibbled.
+
+She broke out again, and pleaded hard for us to drink our coffee, but we
+were obdurate.
+
+Finally we got up from the table and Mary removed the cloth, muttering to
+herself.  I overheard some of it, but where any other cook would have
+been furious at us for not eating her delicious dinner, the dear old
+soul's rage was all directed against herself, and she was vituperating
+herself in language which would not have gone through the mails.
+
+But now the question was where and how to get our dinner so that Mary
+would not suspect.  To send her to church and forage in our own ice-box
+was out of the question, for she knows to a dot how much there is of
+everything, and I cannot take an olive that she does not miss it and come
+and ask me if I took it, to avert suspicion from the ice-man.
+Furthermore, it we both went out, she might suspect.  And we had taught
+her too heroic a lesson to go and spoil it by carelessness now.
+
+"What shall we do?" murmured my husband.
+
+"There's only one thing to do," I said, in low, even tones, with my book
+before my face.  "Go out and buy something ready cooked,--something which
+leaves no trace,--something small enough to go into your overcoat pocket,
+but oh, in the name of heaven, get enough!"
+
+Mary came in as the outer door slammed.
+
+"Where's boss gone?" she demanded.  Perhaps it was only my guilty
+conscience which made her tones sound suspicious.
+
+"Just over to Columbus Avenue to get a paper," I said.
+
+"Oh!"
+
+I waited in a guilty and trembling silence for the Angel to return.  What
+if Mary should take it into her head to come and help him off with his
+overcoat?  She often did.  I softly opened the outer door.  If she didn't
+hear him enter, all would be well.
+
+Presently he came up.  He got out of the elevator stealthily, and I met
+him with my finger on my lip.
+
+"Aren't you going to take off your hat?" I said, as he stole down the
+corridor.
+
+"Can't!"  he whispered.  "I've got cream puffs in it."
+
+I only waited to ward off an attack from the rear.  I put my head in at
+the butler's pantry.
+
+"Mary, I have such a headache that I am going to bed now, so be as quiet
+as you can, won't you?"
+
+"I'll come and open the bed for you right this instantaneous minute, my
+poor dear child," she said, taking her hands out of the dish-water.
+
+"No, I'll open it!  I don't mind in the least," I said, eagerly.
+
+"Not at all!  Do you think I'll be letting you lift your hand when you're
+sick?"
+
+Finding that I could not prevent her, I hurried down the hall to discover
+the Angel looking wildly for a place of escape--still with his hat on.  I
+motioned him into the bathroom, and his coat-tails disappeared therein,
+just as Mary loomed into view.
+
+It took her a full quarter of an hour to open that bed, for nothing would
+do but she must unhook me.  And all that time my thoughts were on the
+cream puffs.  I did hope that Aubrey would have sense enough to put them
+on the wash-stand.
+
+Finally I got rid of Mary, and released the Angel.  He clanked as he came
+in, but that was two pint bottles of beer.
+
+I locked the door, and then he unloaded.  Besides the beer and cream
+puffs, he had four devilled crabs and two dill pickles, four club
+sandwiches, some Roquefort cheese, and some Bent biscuits.
+
+He was obliged to make one more dangerous pilgrimage to the front hall to
+slam the door and hang up his hat and coat, otherwise Mary would have
+gone out after him.  We have such a competent cook.
+
+Finally we sat down and gorged on that impossible mixture.  We had only
+Aubrey's pocket-knife, a paper-cutter, and a button-hook to eat with, and
+rather than to stop and wash out his shaving-cup we drank out of the
+bottles.
+
+We ate until we felt the need of dyspepsia tablets, but still there was
+some left.  This Aubrey did up in a neat package, we raised the window,
+turned out the lights, and threw it far, far out into the night.  We
+listened and heard it fall in a neighbour's back yard.
+
+Now, if we had stopped there, all would have been well, but Fate tempted
+us in the person of a vile and nasty little curly white dog, with a pink
+skin and a blue ribbon around her neck, whose mistress used to lead her
+up and down in front of our apartment-house every evening.  She was a
+very nasty little dog, badly spoiled, and we had longed to kick her for
+six months, but her mistress was always there and we couldn't.
+
+But oh, joy!  On this particular night, she was in the back yard all
+alone, yapping and whining to get indoors.  Clearly this was the best
+place for the empty beer bottles.
+
+"Don't hit her, Aubrey.  Just aim for the cement walk.  That will scare
+her to death."
+
+The Angel seldom follows my wicked counsel, but this was the hand of
+Providence.  No one, who has not owned a big dog, can know how we hated
+this miserable, pampered little cur.
+
+So Aubrey took aim.  The beer bottle hurtled through the air.  We stepped
+back and listened.  It crashed on the walk, and such a series of agonized
+yelps from the frightened little beast resulted as I never before had
+heard.  We clutched each other in silent ecstasy.  Fortunately the pup's
+mistress had not heard.
+
+Emboldened by success we stole forth again, and shied the second bottle.
+But that time Providence was against us, for, at the identical moment
+that the bottle hit the corner of the house and flew into a million
+pieces, the door opened and the dog's mistress appeared.
+
+The crash was something awful.  Nobody was hit or hurt, but the woman
+shrieked and the Angel and I fell to the floor as if shot.  Instantly
+windows flew up, and as each head appeared the infuriated woman accused
+it of having thrown the bottle.  I reached for the Angel's hand as we
+grovelled on the floor, and our former spirit returned as indignant
+denials were followed by more indignant slamming of windows.
+
+Finally--silence.  Two hands sneaked up in the darkness and pulled our
+window down.
+
+"We could prove an alibi," I giggled, "for Mary would go on the stand and
+swear that I was in bed prostrated with a headache!"
+
+The next night the soup was on the table at five minutes before seven,
+and we heard that the white dog was laid up for a week with an "_attaque
+des nerfs_."
+
+"Who would have thought," I sighed, in delight, "of the luck of fetching
+Mary and that white dog both in one evening!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE BEST MAN'S STORY
+
+Trouble began to brew for the best man at my bridesmaid's dinner, but
+it was all his fault.  He says it was mine.
+
+I claim, and I think that all girls will support me in this theory,
+that at all wedding functions, such as teas, receptions, luncheons, and
+dinners, the best man owes the maid of honour the first and most of his
+attentions.  It is her due, and no matter whether he likes her or hates
+her; no matter if he is already in love with another girl, or sees one
+there that he would like to be in love with, he belongs, for the
+wedding festivities, to the first bridesmaid.  It is like the girl your
+hostess assigns to you at dinner,--you _must_ be nice to her.
+
+So Cary Farquhar thought, and so I think.  Artie Beguelin said:
+
+"Then you oughtn't to have invited Flora Forsyth to the bridesmaid's
+dinner."
+
+Well, perhaps I oughtn't.  But I did, because she asked to come.  One
+can't refuse a request of that sort.  Even Aubrey admits that.
+
+Flora was a dreamy, trusting blonde.  She was an innocent appearing
+little thing, and although she was just out of college, I believed she
+would faint at the idea of a cigarette in a girl's fingers or any of
+the mad things college girls are supposed to do when larking.  She had
+no sense of humour, and I simply could not think of her as up to any
+mischief.  That is why, when she said she had fallen in love with me, I
+believed her.  She knew I was to have Cary for my only attendant, but
+she begged so innocently to come to the bridesmaid's dinner and to sit
+with the family behind the white ribbon, that I hadn't the heart to say
+no.  That is why she was at the dinner, and what happened there you
+shall hear presently.
+
+Arthur Beguelin was the Angel's best man.  He, too, was Aubrey's sole
+attendant, for we had no ushers.
+
+Artie was neither clever nor stupid, but that gentle, amiable cross
+between the two which made him fair game for a designing girl.  He was
+better than clever.  He was magnetic, as Cary and Flora found to their
+sorrow.
+
+His father had been enormously wealthy, but his vast property had
+slipped out of his keeping, and had become involved in a lawsuit of
+such dimensions and such hopeless duration that Artie might just as
+well consider himself as a ward in chancery, and be done with it.
+
+This loss of fortune, however, instead of demoralizing him, had been
+his salvation.  It set him to work, and made a man of him.  He never
+believed that he would inherit a dollar of his father's, so he prepared
+to make his own way in the world, regardless of golden hopes.
+
+But not so his friends.  His prospects, hazy as they were, made him
+most interesting to match-making mothers, and as his indomitable
+courage made him interesting to the other and better sort, you will see
+that Artie was pursued rather more than most eligible young men.  This
+pursuit had made him wary and cautious.  Had he been more
+introspective, it would have embittered him; but it shows his amiable
+modesty when I assert that Artie only fought shy of the more aggressive
+anglers, whose landing-nets were always in evidence, while he never
+refused to swim nimbly around and even nibble at the bait of the more
+tactful.
+
+I have described him thus carefully, because it just shows how the most
+wary of men can be caught napping by the right kind of cleverness, and
+which was the right girl for him it took both us and him some time to
+discover.
+
+At first sight, it seemed to be Flora.  As Aubrey said: "It was all off
+with him from the moment he saw her."  He had been the stroke in the
+Yale crew during two glorious years of victory, and, like most men who
+gloried in the companionship of athletic girls, he elected to fall in
+love with Flora, who, the first time she met him, wanted to know the
+difference between a putter and a bunker, which so tickled Artie that
+he put in two good hours explaining it to her.
+
+Cary had known Flora for some time, but two girls could not have been
+more unlike.  Cary was rich, courted, and flattered.  She had only to
+express a wish to have it granted, yet, strange anomaly, she was the
+most unselfish girl I ever knew, and was always going out of her way to
+be nice to people.
+
+Flora was poor.  She went to college by means of a loan from a rich
+woman, and kept herself there by winning scholarships.  She expected to
+teach for a living, and she hated the prospect.  She had to work hard
+for everything she had, which was probably the reason why she was so
+selfish.  To be sure, she was always offering you things, but it was
+either after some one else had offered first, or else she offered
+things you couldn't possibly want.  And as to offering to do things for
+you, I never saw her equal at the formula, "I am going down-town.
+Can't I do something for you?"  Yet if you by any chance made the
+mistake of saying, "That's awfully good of you.  I _would_ like three
+yards of French nainsook," in half an hour Flora would come in with the
+story that she had been telephoned out to luncheon and wasn't going
+down-town, or else had a headache and couldn't go, after all; or, if
+she went, she did her own shopping first and came in breathless with a
+"I'm so tired!  I went everywhere for your French nainsook, but every
+shop was just out of it.  I tried _so_ hard, and now you'll think I am
+just stupid and _can't_ shop."
+
+At which you always had to comfort her and do something extra for
+her, to show that you didn't blame her in the least.  Whenever she
+had grossly imposed upon you, Flora had a way of looking at you
+with what I called the "dog look,"--a humble, faithful, adoring,
+"don't-kick-me-because-I-love-you-so" look, which used to give me
+what Angel calls the jiggle-jaggles, which is only another name for
+twitching nerves,--either mental or physical.
+
+However, I have noticed that these people who are always offering their
+"Can't I do something for you?" never expect to be taken up.  I suppose
+it isn't in human nature any more to be helpful to a friend.  The
+answer to that question is "Thank you so much, dear, for offering, but
+I really don't want a thing!"  That cements the friendship.
+
+Cary was honest, straightforward, and thoughtful.  Flora was crafty,
+deceitful, and brilliant, but her innocent eyes and baby ways made her
+cleverness seem like that of a precocious child, so that she always
+disarmed suspicion.
+
+She deceived me so skilfully and completely that I find myself
+thoroughly mixed in describing her, for at one moment I tell how she
+appeared to me at first, and the next I find myself setting her forth
+as I found her after Cary and Aubrey had set a trap to make me see her
+in her true light.  They were obliged to set a trap, for my loyalty is
+of the blind, stupid sort, which will not be convinced, and all the
+arguments in the world would only have made me more ardently champion
+her as a friend.
+
+You could not call Cary athletic, because she did not go in for
+out-of-door sports to the exclusion of the gentler forms of amusement.
+But whatever she did, she did so well that you would think she had
+given most of her time to the mastering of that one accomplishment.
+But here is where her cleverness showed most.  It was not that she
+really did everything, and did it perfectly.  It was that she never
+attempted anything which she had not mastered.  For example, she never
+played whist, because she had no memory, no finesse, and because she
+played games of chance so much better.  She could never settle herself
+down to a multitude of details, but she could plan and execute a coup
+of such brilliancy that it would make your hair stand on end.  Such was
+Cary Farquhar, and her most successful coup was the way she compelled
+me to see Flora Forsyth in her true colours.
+
+Sometimes I think I am quite clever.  Again I think I am a perfect
+fool.  And the agains come oftener than the sometimes.
+
+I would enjoy making a continuous narrative of this story, as I could
+if I were writing a book, but this is a record of real life, and real
+life does not happen in finished chapters.  If you try to make it, you
+either have to leave out a bit, or go back and repeat something.
+
+Thus, in telling this story of Flora, if I told the perfect faith I had
+in her at first and of how utterly I came to know and despise her
+afterward, I should show to everybody the fool I made of myself, and
+that exhibition I prefer to keep as much to myself as possible.  The
+Angel knows it, and that is bad enough.  So that is why I must make a
+hodge-podge of it, telling a bit here and a bit there, just as things
+happened, and pretending that I saw through her from the first--which,
+however, I didn't.
+
+But, in order to give some idea of her methods, which are of interest
+as a human document, I must set down faithfully how I came to be drawn
+into this love-story, and how the Angel and Cary pulled me out.
+
+This is the very beginning of it.
+
+If you knew our best man, you probably would not be surprised to make
+the discovery that I made--to wit: that two girls were in love with him
+at the same time, for the most ordinary of men have sometimes a
+powerful attraction for the most superior of girls, and Arthur Beguelin
+was much above the ordinary, in looks, manners, breeding, and wealth.
+He was, as I have said, almost rich, which would of itself, to the
+cynic, preclude his being at all nice.  But he was nice.  I liked him,
+the Angel liked him, and these two girls loved him.
+
+I will admit, however, that I was surprised,--just a little,--at first,
+but after I thought about it, I said to Aubrey, "Well, why not?"  He
+said, "Why not what?"
+
+"Why _shouldn't_ two girls be in love with him?"
+
+"They should," said the Angel, pleasantly.  "There is no doubt in the
+world that they should.  But who are the girls and who is the man?"
+
+I thought of course that he knew what I was talking about, or I
+shouldn't have begun in the middle like that, but after all, if you
+_do_ begin in the middle, you can often skip the whole beginning, and
+hurry along to the end.
+
+"Why, Artie Beg, to be sure!  Who else?  And as to the girls--well, as
+I discovered it for myself, I shall not be betraying their confidence
+to say that the girls are--will you _promise_ not to tell nor to
+interfere in anyway?"
+
+"Of course," said the Angel.
+
+"Well, the girls are Flora Forsyth and Cary Farquhar."
+
+"Flora Forsyth!" exclaimed the Angel, with a wry face.
+
+"Now, Aubrey, what _have_ you against that poor girl?  To me she is one
+of the most fascinating creatures I ever saw.  If I were a man, I
+should be crazy about her."
+
+"Then if you had been Samson, Delilah would have made a fool of you
+just as easily as she did of him."
+
+"But Flora is no Delilah, Aubrey."
+
+"She's worse!" said the Angel, shortly.
+
+Aubrey leaned back in his Morris chair and puffed at his pipe.
+Presently he spoke:
+
+"Those two girls are both clever,--as clever as they make 'em,--but
+Cary's cleverness is full of ozone, while Flora's is permeated with a
+narcotic.  Cary's tricks make one laugh, but the other girl's give one
+the shivers."
+
+"Oh, is it as bad as that?" I said, in affright.  "Don't you like her?"
+
+"Like her!" reflected the Angel, slowly.  "I hate her."
+
+I gasped.  Never, never had my husband expressed even a settled dislike
+of any one before, while as to the word "hate"--
+
+"Oh, Aubrey!" I cried, tearfully.  "I _wish_ you had said it before.
+The fact is, I've--well, I've invited her to visit me and she says
+she'll come."
+
+If I expected an explosion, I was mistaken.  Aubrey bit into his
+pipe-stem and sat looking at me for a moment without speaking, a kind,
+wistful look which completely undid me, and made me resolved never,
+_never_ again to do a single thing without consulting him first.  Then
+he leaned forward and slowly began to empty and clean his pipe.
+
+"You like her very much?" he said, tentatively.
+
+"I do, indeed!" I exclaimed, enthusiastically.  "And she is _so_ fond
+of you.  She fairly adores you.  If you would only _try_ to like her,
+Aubrey--she likes you so much--don't smile that way.  You don't do her
+justice.  Indeed you don't.  Why, she is the dearest, most confiding,
+innocent little thing, just out of college last month--a baby couldn't
+have more clinging, dependent ways."
+
+"I'm glad she is coming to visit you, if that's the way you feel about
+her," he said.
+
+I drew a sigh of relief.  _Some_ husbands would have made such a fuss
+that their wives would have felt obliged to cancel the invitation.
+Aubrey was different.
+
+"How did you come to invite her?" he asked, presently.
+
+I smiled in pleased anticipation of a good long talk with my husband,
+in which I could explain everything.
+
+"Why, you know at the wedding I saw that Artie was very much taken with
+her,--and--"
+
+"First, tell me how she came to sit with the family, inside the white
+ribbon?"
+
+"Why, she wrote and asked if she couldn't.  She said she loved me so
+she felt as if she were losing a sister, and that she wanted to sit
+with mother and mourn with the family."
+
+Aubrey grinned and I felt foolish.
+
+"And you believed her, you silly little cat!"
+
+"It does sound idiotic to repeat it, but it read as if she meant it," I
+said, blushing.
+
+"Never mind, dear," said the Angel.  "You are all right."
+
+Now, when Aubrey says I am "all right," it means that I am all wrong,
+but that he loves me in spite of it.
+
+"Bee says," I said between laughing and crying, "that I am just like a
+stray dog.  A pat on the head and a few kind words, and I'd follow
+anybody off."
+
+"It would take something more substantial than that to make Bee follow
+anybody off," observed Bee's brother-in-law.
+
+"Well, and so she and he were together all that evening, and afterward
+they corresponded.  But Cary, being my bridesmaid, had, of course, the
+first claim on Artie's attention, but he was so taken with Flora that
+he sort of neglected Cary.  Then, Cary being so spoiled by being rich
+and courted and flattered, was piqued into trying to make him notice
+her, which old stupid Artie refused to do, but tagged around after
+Flora as if she had hypnotized him.  Then Cary must have been quite
+roused, for the first thing I knew she was showing unmistakable signs
+of its being the real thing with her, though, of course, she would deny
+it with oaths if I taxed her, while Flora--"
+
+I stopped in sudden confusion.
+
+"I forget," I faltered.   "I said that neither had confided in me,
+but--"
+
+Aubrey grinned.
+
+"But Flora has," he supplemented.  "She has confessed her love, not
+blushingly, but tumultuously, brazenly, tempestuously, and has begged
+you to help her!"
+
+I paused aghast.  Aubrey had exactly stated the case.
+
+"Well, she told Cary, too," I said, in self-extenuation, "so she can't
+care very much that I've told you."
+
+"Oh, no," said Aubrey, cheerfully.  "She'll tell me herself the first
+chance she gets."
+
+"She told Cary that she had told me, so we felt at liberty to talk it
+over," I added.
+
+"She did?"
+
+"And Cary was perfectly disgusted with her, and asked what I was going
+to do.  I said I didn't know.  Then what do you think she did?  Cary
+asked me to ask Flora to visit me!  What do you think of that for a
+bluff?"
+
+Again Aubrey grinned.  He shook his head.
+
+"That was no bluff, Faith dear.  That was a move in a game of chess.
+Cary Farquhar is the choicest--_unmarried_--girl I know!  By Jove,
+she's a corker!"
+
+"She just did it to throw me off--to show me that _she_ didn't want
+him!" I persisted.
+
+The Angel shook his head and smiled inscrutably.
+
+"When does she come?" he asked.
+
+"Next week."
+
+Aubrey pulled at his pipe.
+
+"There will be something doing here next week, I'm thinking."
+
+
+There was something doing.
+
+First, I told old Mary that I was going to have company.
+
+One ordinarily does not ask permission of one's cook, but Mary was such
+a mother to me that I felt the announcement to be no more than her due.
+
+"Who is it, Missus, dear?"
+
+"Miss Flora Forsyth.  Have you ever heard me speak of her?"
+
+"Do you mean that blonde on the mantelpiece?" she asked, in the
+conversational tone of one who but passed the time o' day.
+
+"Mary!" I said.
+
+She walked up to Flora's picture, took it down, looked at it, and put
+it back.
+
+"Well," I said, tentatively, "what do you think of her?"
+
+"What do I think of her?" demanded Mary, wheeling on me so suddenly
+that I dodged.  "I think she is a little blister--that's what I think
+of her.  And you'll rue the day you ever asked her into your house."
+
+Ordinarily one would reprove one's cook for such freedom of speech, but
+I had brought it on myself.  Therefore I saved my breath, put on my
+hat, and went out, ruminating and somewhat shaken in my mind to have
+the two household authorities against me.
+
+However, true to my determination to make her visit as attractive as
+possible, I purchased at least a dozen sorts of fine French marmalades,
+jellies, sweets, and fancy pickles, such as schoolgirls love.
+
+She had told me so many times how she had always wanted her breakfast
+in her room, but had never been able to have it, that I decided to give
+her that privilege in my house.  I told Mary with some misgivings, and
+showed her the things I had bought.  To my surprise, Mary assented
+joyfully.  I never knew why until after Flora left.  Then Mary told me.
+I even selected the china she was to use on the breakfast-tray.  It was
+blue and gold.  Flora loved blue.  Then I took a final look at
+everything, gave a few last orders, and dismissed all worry from my
+mind.
+
+Her room, _the guest chamber_ of the Jardines, was fresh for her.  No
+one had ever slept in that bed, fluttered those curtains, nor written
+at that desk.  Flora would be its first occupant.
+
+And how her blond beauty matched its pale blue and gold loveliness!  It
+gave me thrills of delight to think of her in the midst of it all.
+
+But of course it was Cary I loved.  Flora simply fascinated me.  She
+possessed the attractions of a Circe, but Cary was worth a million of
+her, and I knew it and I wanted her to have Artie Beg, or anybody else
+on earth she fancied.  The whole proposition was as plain as day when I
+came to think about it.  I was Cary's champion, Cary's friend, and
+intended Cary to win.  Why, therefore, had I permitted myself to be
+inveigled into asking Flora to visit me, under the supposition that I
+was going to help her?  It was not because Cary had begged me to.  Not
+at all.  It was Flora herself who had managed it, I reflected, and it
+gave me a bitter, uncomfortable twinge to realize that whatever Flora
+had wanted me to do, in our brief friendship, I had done, no matter
+whose judgment it went against.
+
+Had the girl hypnotic power, or was I a weak fool to be flattered into
+doing her bidding?
+
+I don't like to think of myself as a weak fool, even for the sake of
+argument.
+
+The two girls had hated each other at sight, as was natural.  Cary
+admitted the reason with glorious frankness.
+
+"Of course I hate her," she said, with a lift of her sleek brown head,
+"didn't she usurp my prerogatives at the wedding?  The best man
+belongs, for that evening alone, to the maid of honour--he can't escape
+it--it is his fate.  Common civility should have chained him to my
+chariot wheels, but with that white-headed Lilith at work on him, with
+her half-shut eyes, she had him queered before he even saw me.  But
+wait.  My turn will come."
+
+Flora said to me:
+
+"Of course I hate her, because _you_ love her.  You love her better
+than you love me.  You have known her longer--that's the only reason!
+She doesn't care _that_ for you.  It's because you are married, and can
+give her a good time that she pretends to care for you.  _I_ know.  Oh,
+you may laugh and think I am jealous or insane or anything you like.
+Well, then, I _am_ jealous, for I love you better than anybody in the
+world, and I want you to love me in the same way.  I love you better
+than I love my mother--or my father--or even Artie Beg!  And I am
+jealous of every one you speak to.  I am jealous most of all of Aubrey,
+for you have eyes for no one on earth but him.  I could hate him when I
+think of it."
+
+At that I _did_ laugh, but she was a good actress, and said it as if
+she meant it.
+
+Flora always acted as if she knew of my repressed childhood, and of
+how, all my life, I had thirsted for praise.  No matter if it had been
+put on with a trowel, as hers undoubtedly was, I would have wrapped
+myself in its tropical warmth and luxuriance, and never paused to
+quarrel with its effulgence.  While dear old Cary let her actions
+speak, and seldom put her affection for me into words.  But she had
+been on the eve of sailing for a winter in Egypt when my hurried
+wedding preparations and frantic telegram arrested her.  The party
+sailed without her, and she did not try to follow.  And that was only
+one of the many sacrifices she had made for me, and made without a
+word, too.
+
+She was a girl of thought and of ideas, but unfortunately she was a
+great heiress, and fortune-hunters had made her suspicious and cynical.
+Only Aubrey and I knew how glorious she could be when she let herself
+out and expressed her real self.
+
+The first thing Flora did to make me uncomfortable was to pump the
+Angel about Artie's law-suit.
+
+It was so intricate, so long drawn out, and so enormous in its
+proportions, that it bade fair to resemble the famous Jarndyce and
+Jarndyce.  We had never mentioned it to Artie, but Flora, after a few
+reluctant words from Aubrey, persuaded Artie, in the easiest way
+imaginable, to tell her everything about it, from its inception.  She
+told me she had even read half a dozen of her uncle's law-books, which
+bore upon the knotty points Artie had described to her.  Instead of
+arousing his suspicions of mercenary motives, her innocent manner and
+flowerlike face deceived him into believing that her interest was very
+commendable.  She explained that she had always wanted to study law,
+but that her father wouldn't let her, so that she always coaxed her
+friends to describe their law-suits to her, and then she read up on
+them by herself.  Artie thought this was wonderful.  So it was.
+
+Cary would never listen to a word about it, nor read about it in the
+papers; nor could she be inveigled into expressing an opinion about it
+one way or the other.  Her pride revolted from appearing even to know
+that he had such prospects, faint and distant though they were.
+
+When Flora came, Mary put on her spectacles before she opened the door.
+I noticed the look she gave all three of us.  It did not speak well for
+Flora.
+
+But, at first, her shyness and modesty left nothing to be desired.  Her
+clothes were simple even to plainness, her voice soft and deprecating,
+and her manner deferential in the extreme.  She was always asking
+advice, and where that advice was given, she always followed it.
+Flattery could go no further.
+
+Artie came to see her, morning, noon, and night.  I was horrified to
+discover how far things seemed to have progressed, for, after all, it
+was Cary who _must_ have Artie if she wanted him.
+
+Cary called on Flora once, and we returned it, but she did not come
+again.  So I resolved on a dinner, and Cary promised to come.  The
+others were to be the Jimmies, Bee, and three more persons so
+insignificant, so vapid, so entirely not worth describing that, in a
+race, they would not even be mentioned as "also rans."  In short, they
+were the typical dinner-guests the hostess always fills in with.
+
+I worked hard on that dinner.  Flora offered to help, but Mary, without
+actually refusing her assistance, managed to do without it, and I did
+not realize until afterward how quickly Flora accepted her fate, and
+curled herself up luxuriously on Aubrey's couch in Aubrey's particular
+corner to read, while I bleached the almonds which she had offered to
+do.
+
+Flora kept me well informed of the progress of Artie's passion for her,
+and I could do nothing.  I was surprised at her confiding such details
+to any one, dismayed for Cary's sake, and worried as to how it would
+turn out.
+
+Finally the evening of the dinner came.  I dressed and ran out to the
+kitchen to see if everything was all right, for Mary was so jealous she
+refused to let me engage an assistant, but doggedly persisted in
+preparing and serving the dinner entirely by herself.
+
+To my surprise, I found the dining-room and kitchen shades pulled up to
+the tops of the windows, while every handsome dish Mary intended to
+use, and all the extra silver, were carefully placed on top of the
+laundry-tubs.  Mary, apparently unconscious of observation, was flying
+around with pink cheeks, and the eyes behind the spectacles snapping
+with excitement.
+
+"Don't say a word, Missus," she said, sitting on her heels before the
+oven door.  "I did it for the benefit of the rubber factory opposite.
+They think I don't notice, but look at them windows.  Not a light in
+any of 'em, but all the curtains moving just a little.  Do they think I
+don't know there's a rubber behind every damn one of 'em?  Don't laugh,
+Missus dear, and don't look over there, whatever you do.  If they want
+a look at the things we eat, why let 'em!  They know what they cost,
+but I'll bet they never do more than ask the price of 'em, and then buy
+soup-bones and canned vegetables for their own stomachs."
+
+Mary didn't say stomachs, but much of Mary's conversation does not look
+well in print.
+
+"And just wait till I take in the 'peche flambée'!" she chuckled.
+"I'll bet they'll order out the fire department!"
+
+I said nothing, for the very excellent reason that there was really
+nothing to say.  Mary has a way of being rather conclusive.  There was
+no use in remonstrating or telling her not to, for she simply would not
+have obeyed me, so I forbore to give the order.
+
+Flora heard Mary let Artie Beg in, and ran down the corridor to meet
+him.  She was a vision in white--her graduation dress--with her snowy
+shoulders rising modestly from a tulle bertha.  I paused in order to
+let her greet him first, and, to my consternation, before I could make
+known my presence, I heard her say, plaintively:
+
+"Aren't you going to kiss me?"
+
+Then with a stifled groan Artie flung his arms around her, pressing her
+to him as if he would never let her go.  Then he pushed her away from
+him almost roughly, and Flora laughed a low, tantalizing laugh, and
+crept back to him to lean her head on his shoulder, and lay her arms
+around his neck.
+
+I turned and fled.  I fairly stampeded down the hall, running full tilt
+against Aubrey, and nearly folding him up.
+
+"Oh!  Oh!" I gasped, dancing up and down before him excitedly.
+
+He seized both my hands.
+
+"Hold still, Faith!  What's the matter?  Tell me!"
+
+"They're engaged!" I wailed.  "I'm too late!  Cary has lost him!"
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Artie and Flora."
+
+"What makes you think so?"
+
+"He's kissing her!  And she asked him to, just as if she had a right.
+I would not think so much of it, if he had just grabbed her and kissed
+her without a word, for she looks too witching, and any man might lose
+his head, but for her to ask for it--oh, what shall I do!"
+
+"Hold on!  You say she asked him to--tell me just how."
+
+I told him.
+
+The Angel put both hands in his pockets and whistled.
+
+"Don't worry," he said.  "They're not engaged."
+
+I felt relieved at once, for the Angel does not write books from
+guesswork.  He _knows_ things.
+
+But I was greatly confused at going back.  Of course they did not know
+that I had seen and heard, and equally, of course, I could not tell
+them.  But I had my confusion all to myself.  Artie seemed about as
+usual (which he wouldn't have done if he had known that there was
+powder on his coat), and Flora was as cool as an iceberg.
+
+It seems to me, as I look back, that that was the first time I
+suspected anything.  It was almost uncanny to see her sitting there
+looking so shy and demure, when two minutes before she had begged a man
+to kiss her, and laughed that cool, tantalizing laugh, as of one who
+knew her power and revelled in the sight of her victim's struggles to
+escape.
+
+I turned to Cary, my well-bred girl, my friend, with a feeling of
+relief, as if I had found a refuge.  Cary flushed a little as she
+greeted Artie, and Flora's lip curled perceptibly.
+
+I glanced at the Angel, and saw that he, too, had noticed it.  But
+then, Aubrey sees everything.  That is why he writes as he does.  His
+manner as he greeted Cary was so cordial that it caused Artie to look
+up, and then, to my surprise, Artie got up from his chair, and came and
+stood by Cary and took her fan.
+
+I wish you could have seen Flora's blue eyes turn green.
+
+Then Bee and the Jimmies came, and, as usual, I straightway forgot
+everything else, and bent my energies toward playing the part of
+hostess so that Bee would not feel disgraced.
+
+I followed her eye as it travelled over our gowns and around the
+apartment.  Bee does not realize that she has silently appointed
+herself Superior General to the universe, so she was somewhat
+disconcerted, when, as she finally leaned back with a sigh which seemed
+to say, "This is really as well as anybody could do who didn't have me
+to consult with," to hear Aubrey say, slyly:
+
+"Well, Bee, does it suit?"
+
+Bee assumed her most Park Lane air, and replied:
+
+"I don't know what you mean, Aubrey."
+
+Then to avoid further pleasantries, Mary standing in the doorway, I
+marshalled them all out to the table.
+
+Flora was between Aubrey and Artie, but I put Cary on the other side of
+Artie, while I took Jimmie by me, and mercilessly handed Mrs. Jimmie
+over to the "also rans."
+
+Flora, who pretended jealousy of the Angel to veil her instinctive
+dislike of one who read her through and through, frankly turned her
+back on him, and tried all her wiles on Artie, which would not have
+disconcerted him, had not the Also Ran commenced to smile and attract
+Mrs. Jimmie's attention to it.
+
+This brought Artie from his trance sufficiently to cause him to turn
+his attention to Cary, but it was so palpably forced that Cary devoted
+herself with ardour to Jimmie, and left Artie speechless.
+
+Then something spurred Flora to do a foolish thing.  She deliberately
+began to bait Cary--to say things to annoy her--to try to mortify her.
+At first Cary refused to see what was evident to the rest of us.  (Oh,
+my dinner-party was proving such a success!)
+
+At this critical juncture, Mary appeared bearing the chafing-dish full
+of blazing, flaming peaches, and in watching me ladle the fiery liquid,
+hostilities were for the moment discontinued.  Involuntarily, as Mary's
+satisfied countenance betokened her complete happiness at the
+successful culmination of the dinner, my eyes wandered to the
+dining-room windows.  I had drawn the shades with my own hand, but some
+mysterious agent had been at work, for they were let fly to the very
+window-tops.
+
+I glanced at Mary.  She pressed her lips together with a whimsical
+twist, and surreptitiously raised a finger in sly warning.
+
+"Them rubbers are having a fit!" she murmured in my ear, as she
+deferentially took a blazing peach from me, and placed it before Flora
+with a look so black it seemed to say:
+
+"If you get your deserts, you little blister, it would set fire to you!"
+
+They were talking about love when I began listening again,--and Cary
+made some remark inaudible to me, which gave Flora the opportunity to
+say:
+
+"Is it true, then, what I have heard?  Were you ever disappointed in
+love?"
+
+"Always!" said Cary, evenly.
+
+Jimmie grinned and jogged my elbow.
+
+"Isn't she a dandy?" he whispered.  "Never turned a hair."
+
+Flora flushed angrily because Artie laughed and looked appreciatively
+at Cary, as if really seeing her for the first time.
+
+Every woman knows when that supreme moment comes--at least, every woman
+has who has liked a man before he has liked her.  She feels it without
+looking at him.  She knows it from the innermost consciousness of her
+being.  "He is looking at me," says her heart, "for the first time,
+with the eyes which a man has for a woman."
+
+Many a man has been selected first, as Cary selected Artie, and been
+wooed by her as modestly and legitimately as she did, without
+suspecting that he did not take the initiative every time.
+
+So a little modest courage and restrained self-reliance crept into
+Cary's manner, which had never been there before, and I, believing
+implicitly in the Angel's _ipse dixit_ that Flora and the best man were
+not engaged, had visions of the first bridesmaid's winning her lost
+place with him, and, oh, making him pay for his neglect.
+
+If man only knew how heavily a flouted woman, after she has safely won
+him, does make him pay for his bad taste, he would be more careful.
+
+But Artie never knew.  He sat there, listening to the biting words
+which passed back and forth between Flora and Cary, without his modesty
+permitting him to realize that he was the stake these two clever girls
+were throwing mental dice for.
+
+But Jimmie knew, for his blue eyes turned black, and his cigarettes
+burned out in two puffs, and his nervous hands clenched and unclenched
+in his wicked wish to say something to aggravate the affair.  Finally,
+meeting my derisive grin, he wrenched my little finger under the table,
+under pretence of picking up my handkerchief, and whispered:
+
+"Oh, Lord, give me strength to keep out of this row!"
+
+I laughed, of course, and so missed something, for the next thing I
+heard, the conversation had become more personal, and Flora was saying:
+
+"Love is an acquisition.  The more you have, the more you want."
+
+"Pardon me," said Cary.  "To my mind, love is a sacrifice.  Yet the
+more you give, the more you gain."
+
+"But I don't want to believe that!" pouted Flora, charmingly.  "That is
+a cruel, ascetic conception of love.  It makes me shiver, like reading
+the New Testament."
+
+For the first time Artie spoke.
+
+"You prefer, then, the Song of Solomon?"  And the Angel brought his
+hand down on the table a little heavily, and looked at me.
+
+"Yes, I do!" laughed Flora, thinking she had scored.  "And I
+know--because I have loved!"
+
+"You have loved, have you?" said Cary, leaning forward to look at her
+across Artie's tucked shirt-front.  "Then if you have, truly and
+deeply, as a woman can, when she meets the man who is her mate, can you
+jest so lightly about love being an acquisition?  Are you thinking of
+his income and what he can give you more than your father has been able
+to do?  Does your idea of marriage consist of dinner-parties and routs?
+Or do you think of the man himself?  Of his noble qualities of heart
+and mind?  Does not the idea of permanent prosperity sometimes fade,
+and in its place do you not sometimes see the man you love, poor,
+neglected by his friends, and jeered by his enemies?  Does he not
+sometimes appear to you stretched on a weary bed of sickness?  Can you
+picture yourself his only friend, his only helper, his only comforter?
+If he were crippled for life, would you go out to try to earn bread for
+two, rejoicing that Fate had only taken his strength to toil, and not
+his strength to love?  Would you still count yourself a blessed woman
+if you knew that everything were swept away but the love of a man worth
+loving like that?"
+
+Flora quailed, and drew back, abashed and a little frightened, but
+Artie's face was a study.  At a sign from Aubrey, I looked at Mrs.
+Jimmie and rose.  Just behind me, as I turned, I heard Artie whisper to
+Cary:
+
+"Tell me, have _you_ ever loved like that?"
+
+And Cary's murmured reply:
+
+"Not yet, but--I could."
+
+After that, Flora's fascination seemed to wane.  Mrs. Jimmie never had
+liked her, and as we went into the drawing-room she gave Cary one of
+her rare and highly prized caresses, which Cary received gratefully.
+
+As for Artie, he never left Cary's side.  He was the first to follow us
+to the drawing-room, for as I always let men smoke at the table, we
+always leave it _en masse_.
+
+He said little, but he listened to every word Cary spoke, and he
+watched her as if fascinated.
+
+I was jubilant, and my sober old Angel almost permitted himself to look
+pleased, but not quite.  The Angel is never reckless with his emotions.
+
+Dinner had been over about two hours, and Mrs. Jimmie was beginning to
+look at the clock, when Aubrey approached and whispered:
+
+"I haven't heard a sound in the kitchen since dinner, and Mary hasn't
+entered the dining-room.  Don't you think we would better take a look
+at her?"
+
+The kitchen was separated from the dining-room by only the butler's
+pantry.  As we opened the swinging door, a figure holding a
+chafing-dish in both hands attempted to rise from the cracker-box, but
+sank back again, shaking with laughter.
+
+"It's me, Boss dear!  Don't look so scared, but I'm drunk as a fool.
+How many of them awful peaches did you eat, Missis?"
+
+"Only one," I said.
+
+"And you, Boss?"
+
+"Only one.  How many did you eat?"
+
+"Only half a one, but I finished all the juice in the dish--"
+
+"Juice!" I cried.  "Why, Mary, that was brandy and kirschwasser, and
+two or three other things."
+
+"Don't I know it?  But I never thought, Missis dear, I came here to
+rubber at that fight between Miss Farquhar and the little blister--"
+
+"Mary!"
+
+"Not a word more, Missis dear, if you don't like it!  But anyhow I came
+here to--rest myself, and I began absent-mindedly to take a sip out of
+this big spoon here, and soon it was all gone.  Then when you all went
+into the other room, I tried to get up, but my legs didn't want to,
+and, be the powers, they haven't wanted to since, though I've tried 'em
+every two minutes or so.  I've just set here, helpless as a new-born
+babe that can't roll over in its crib.  I meant to flag the first one
+of you that went past the door, for if somebody would prop me up in
+front of the sink, I could begin on a pile of dishes there big enough
+to scare a dog from his cats."
+
+Aubrey and I leaned against each other in silent but hysterical
+delight.  Mary was deeply pleased to see us so diverted.
+
+Her legs recovered sufficiently before we left for her to walk to the
+sink, while we went back to our guests.
+
+Every one was leaving, and Artie was taking Cary home.  I looked to see
+how Flora took it, but her appealing blue eyes were fixed in their most
+appealing way upon the Also Ran, who was plainly undergoing thrills of
+exquisite torture therefrom.  Jimmie gave one look at the tableau, and
+turned toward the door with his tongue in his cheek.
+
+
+After that curious evening, there seemed to be a tremendous emotional
+upheaval.  Artie hardly came near Flora, and when he did call, appeared
+to derive much satisfaction from gazing at her with a quizzical look in
+his eyes which seemed to annoy her excessively.  The Also Ran was
+omnipresent, and was instant in season, out of season.  But instead of
+arousing Artie's jealousy, this seemed only to amuse him.
+
+Finally the cause of Artie's visits developed.   He blurted it out to
+me one day with the red face of a shamed schoolboy.
+
+"Faith, I wish you'd do me the favour to ask Cary Farquhar here some
+evening, and let me know!  I've been going there till I'm ashamed to
+face the butler, but I never can see her alone, and the last two times
+she has sent down her excuses, and wouldn't see me at all."
+
+I could have squealed for joy, but, mindful of Cary's dignity, I said:
+
+"I don't believe she'd come, Artie.  I'm afraid--"
+
+"Afraid that she'd suspect that I would be here too?  I don't believe
+I've made it as plain as that!" he interrupted.
+
+"Do you mean to say that you are really and truly--?"
+
+"I mean just that," he said, with a new earnestness in his manner, that
+I never had noted before.
+
+"Oh, Artie!" I cried.  "I'm _so_ glad!  But what if she's--"
+
+"Don't say it!  It makes me cold all over to think of it.  That's why I
+want you to ask her here.  I've _got_ to see her.  Why, Faith,
+she's--really, Faith, she's the _only_ girl in the world, now _isn't_
+she?"
+
+"So I've thought for years!" I cried, warmly.
+
+"Talk about love being instantaneous," said Artie, plunging his hands
+into his pockets, and striding up and down.  "I've loved her and loved
+her _hard_ ever since she explained what love meant to her that night
+at your dinner.  Why, if I could get her to love _me_ that way, I'd be
+richer than John D!  But shucks!  She never will!  What am _I_, I'd
+like to know, to expect such a miracle?"
+
+"You're very nice!" I stuttered, in my haste, "and just the man for
+her, both Aubrey and I think, but I'll tell you where the trouble is.
+She thinks you belong to Flora."
+
+"Never!" replied Artie, vehemently.  "I never _thought_ of marrying
+Flora.  She--well, she sort of appealed to me--you know how!  She
+wanted me to help her to understand golf.  She said it made her feel so
+out of it not to know what people were talking about who played the
+game--you know she was a poke at college, and didn't go in for
+athletics at all.  Well, you can understand it when you look at her.
+_She_ couldn't get into a sweater and a short skirt and play
+basket-ball, now could she?  She'd be wanting some man always about to
+hold her things or pitch the ball for her.  She is such a dependent
+little thing.  Then she had always wanted to study law and her people
+wouldn't let her--don't blame 'em for it!--but she wanted me to help
+her to understand it just for practice, she said, so I tried to.  But
+as to _marrying_ her!  Well, to tell the truth--she--er--she does
+things--I mean, I think her emotions are a little too volcanic to suit
+_me_, and I'm no prude.
+
+"You'll tell Cary this, won't you, Faith?  All but that last.  Explain
+how I came to get tangled up with the girl.  You can do it so she won't
+suspect that you're working for me.  You can bring it in casually,
+without bungling it.  Tell her I never gave a serious thought to Flora
+in my life."
+
+"I will, and I'll get her here for you!" I cried, as he rose to go.
+
+I followed him to the door, and as I closed it after him the door of
+the butler's pantry opened noiselessly, and there stood old Mary with
+her finger on her lip.  She motioned me to precede her, and she
+followed me down the hall to my room and into it, carefully closing the
+door behind her.  "Missis," she whispered, kneeling down beside my
+chair.  "Scold me!  Do!  I've been made the real fool of by that little
+blister.  Lord, if I wouldn't like to take her across my knee with a
+fat pine shingle in my good right hand.  Listen!  She heard you at the
+telephone, and knew you expected Mr. Beguelin this afternoon, so she
+comes to me just after lunch and she says to me, 'Mary, Mr. Beguelin is
+coming this evening, so I think I'll take a little nap on the couch if
+you'll cover me up with the brown rug.'  The brown rug, see?  Just the
+colour of the couch, and the one I always keep put away for the Boss.
+Of course I couldn't refuse after she said you said to give it to her--"
+
+"I didn't," I interrupted.
+
+"I know it.  I know it now!  But the little devil knew that I was going
+out, and that you would answer the door yourself--"
+
+"Mary!" I shrieked, in a whisper.  "She wasn't in there all the time,
+was she?"
+
+"That's just what she was!  Listening to every word you said.  I just
+came in a minute ago, or I'd have let you know.  But he got up to go,
+just as I had my hand on the door-knob."
+
+"What shall I do?" I murmured, distractedly.  Then, after a pause, I
+said, "Perhaps she was asleep and didn't hear!"
+
+Mary gave me such a contemptuous look that I hurriedly apologized.
+
+Then the Angel came in, and I told Mary to go, and then I told him
+everything.  He thought quite awhile before speaking.
+
+"Do you care for her very much, Faith dear?" he said, in his dear,
+gentle way.
+
+"If she has done the abominable thing that Mary says, I'll--hate her!
+I'll turn her out of the house!" I cried, viciously.
+
+"Ah!" said Aubrey, in a satisfied tone.  He knows I wouldn't, but it
+does do me so much good to threaten to do the awful things I'd like to
+do if I were a cruel woman.
+
+He rose and left the room.  I started to follow him, but he waved me
+back.
+
+"I won't be gone a moment.  Wait for me here."
+
+I waited three or four years, and then, when I had grown white-haired
+with age, he came back.
+
+"Begin at the beginning, tell everything, and don't skip a word," I
+demanded.
+
+"Well," he began, obediently.  "She was sobbing gently--not for effect
+this time.  I went in softly, and asked her what the matter was.  She
+said she had been out all the afternoon to see a friend who had just
+been obliged to place her mother in a lunatic asylum, and she was
+crying for sympathy.  Then, as she saw me look at my rug, she said Mary
+had left the rug out for her to take a nap early in the afternoon, and
+that she had intended to, but had decided to go out instead.  Now what
+I object to is the style of her lying.  I admire a good lie, but a
+clumsy, misshapen, rippled affair like that one is an abomination in
+the sight of the Lord."
+
+I stood up with a flaming face.
+
+"Don't get excited," said Aubrey.  "She is going home to-morrow.  Keep
+calm to-night, and the next time you see Artie, he will relieve all
+your feelings by what he will say."
+
+"Why?  What does he know?"
+
+"Well, the Also Ran admires athletic girls, you know, not being able to
+sit astride a horse himself, and through his boasting Artie has
+discovered that Flora is a crack golf player--won the cup for her
+college in her junior year."
+
+I fell on the bed in a fit of hysterical laughter.
+
+"If that's the way you are going to take it, I feel that I can tell you
+the worst," said Aubrey, with a relieved face.  "The fact is, I believe
+that that girl has a game on with the Also Ran."
+
+"Oh, _no_, Aubrey!" I cried.  "I know that she is too desperately in
+love with Artie to care about anybody else.  She is so fascinating I
+have but one fear, and that is that Artie will come under her sway
+again.  If he does, Cary would never forgive it."
+
+"You are barking up the wrong tree, my dear," said my husband.  "It is
+far more likely that Artie has already gone too far with Flora for Cary
+to forgive, and that's why she won't see him."
+
+At that, I tossed my head, for I felt that I knew how both Cary and
+Flora loved better than Aubrey did.  Flattering myself, also, that I
+knew men pretty well, I had my doubts about the strength of Artie's
+character.  It takes real courage for a man to be true to one woman, if
+another woman has pitted her fascinations against him.
+
+I intended to avoid Flora, but I found her lying in wait for me, and
+beckoning me from the doorway.  I went in, and at once, in order to
+seem natural, remarked upon her red eyes.  But it seems that that was
+exactly what she wanted me to do.  The girl had no pride.  She _wanted_
+me to pity her.
+
+"I'm ready to kill myself!" she cried.  "I am perfectly sure that Artie
+has only been flirting with me and that some one has come between us.
+You can't want Cary to have him, or why did you invite me here, and
+arrange for me to see so much of him, and try so hard to bring us
+together?  You are not two-faced like that, I hope?"
+
+I was too bewildered to speak.  Yet how could I answer her questions?
+Before I left her, I was convinced that it was all my fault.  I told
+Aubrey so.
+
+"Nonsense!" he said, quite roughly for him.  "I think Mary's name for
+Flora is a good one.  She is a little blister."
+
+"No," I said, "she is not bad at heart.  She is simply an impulsive,
+uncontrolled little animal, and more frank in her loves than most of
+us.  That's all."
+
+I saw the Angel set his lips together as if he could say something if
+he only dared, but his way of managing me is to give me my head and let
+circumstances teach me.  He never forces Nature's hand.
+
+Flora's visit was to have terminated the next day, but, to Aubrey's
+intense disgust and my utter rout, she begged for just three days more,
+and before I knew it I had consented.  As I hurriedly left the room
+after consenting, I turned suddenly and met her gaze.  Her eyes were a
+mere slit in her face, so narrowed and crafty they were.  And the look
+she shot at me was a look of hatred.
+
+Too bewildered by this curious girl's inexplicable actions to try to
+unravel my emotions and come to a decision regarding her, I kept out of
+her way all I could.  I was simply waiting--waiting impatiently for the
+three days to pass.  I only hoped that Artie would not come again while
+she was here.
+
+But, alas, the very next morning I was at the telephone when I heard
+Flora run to the door to let somebody in, and before I could speak I
+heard her say, in that surprised, complaining tone of hers, "Aren't you
+going to kiss me?" and then--well, I got up and slammed the door so
+hard that the key fell out.
+
+What a fool Artie was?  What fools _all_ men were, not to be able to
+keep faith with a woman, and such a woman as Cary Farquhar!  I rushed
+from the study into my room, and burst into a storm of tears, in the
+midst of which Aubrey found me.
+
+"Poor little Faith!  Poor, discouraged, little match-maker!" he said,
+smoothing my hair.  But at that last I sat up and shook his hand off.
+
+"It's so _disgusting_ of him!" I stammered.  "If you could have heard
+him when he was talking about Flora!"
+
+"How do you know it was Artie who came in?" said Aubrey, gently.
+
+I opened my mouth and simply stared at him.  Then I went to the glass,
+smoothed my hair and straightened my belt.
+
+"Where are you going?" asked my husband.
+
+"I am going to _see_!" I exclaimed.  "And if it _isn't_ Artie--if she
+is kissing every man that comes into this house, I'll--I'll _kill_ her."
+
+"What!  You'll kill her if you find that Artie is not the faithless
+wretch you were crying about?"
+
+"Oh, Aubrey!  How _can_ you?" I cried.
+
+He tried to catch me as I flew past, but I eluded him, and started
+firmly down the long hall.  But in spite of myself, my feet dragged.
+What was Flora attempting?  Did she hate me as her look implied?  Did
+she love Artie as she declared, or was she simply endeavouring to get
+married, and so save herself from a life of teaching, which she openly
+detested?
+
+I kept on, however, goaded by my righteous indignation.  To my
+astonishment I found, not Artie, but the Also Ran, with Flora frankly
+in his arms.
+
+They sprang up at my swift entrance, and the man had the grace to look
+furiously confused.  Flora never even changed colour.  I asked no
+questions.  I simply stood before them in accusing silence.  But my
+look was black and ominous.  Flora gave one swift glance at my
+uncompromising attitude, and then, with a modesty and grace and sweet
+appealing humility impossible to describe, she came a step toward me,
+holding out her arms and saying, plaintively:
+
+"Won't you congratulate me?  We are engaged."
+
+I was struck dumb--that is, I would have been struck dumb, if I had not
+been rendered not only speechless, but unable to move by the actions of
+the man.  Entirely unmindful of my presence, he sprang toward Flora,
+stammering, brokenly:
+
+"Do you mean it, dear?  Have you decided already?  You said six months!
+You are sure you mean it?"
+
+Then, not seeing the angry colour flame into Flora's pale, calm face,
+he turned to me, saying, brokenly:
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Jardine!  She has teased me so!  I never dreamed she would
+decide so quickly.  And I--you will forgive me! but I love her so!"
+
+I looked away from his twitching face to Flora, and mentally resolved
+never to call him an Also Ran again.  He did not deserve it.  I am
+seldom sarcastic, but I knew Flora would understand.
+
+"Flora," I said, distinctly, "you are to be congratulated."
+
+Then I turned and left them.
+
+The very day that Flora left, Cary came back to me.
+
+"Well," she said, tentatively, "what do you think of her?"
+
+"Well," I answered, cautiously, "I don't know."
+
+Cary looked at me in disgust.
+
+"Your loyalty amounts to nothing short of blindness and stupidity," she
+remarked, severely.  "As for me, I am going to look at the nest the
+viper has left."
+
+So saying, she got up and went into the blue room, Aubrey and I meekly
+following.
+
+Pinned to the pillow was a note directed to me.  Cary unpinned and
+handed it to me.
+
+"Cleverest and best of women," it began, "Many thanks for your
+delightful hospitality.  I have enjoyed it to the full--far more,
+indeed, than you know.  Look under the mattress of this bed and you
+will understand."
+
+We tore the bed to pieces without speaking.  Then Aubrey and Cary
+looked at each other and laughed.
+
+"_Now_ will you believe," said Cary.
+
+There were cigarette-boxes full of nothing but butts and ashes.  There
+were three of my low-cut bodices.  There were some of Aubrey's ties and
+a number of my best handkerchiefs.
+
+I said nothing.  I simply stared.
+
+"We all knew of these things, Faith dear," said Aubrey, "but even if
+you had caught her wearing your clothes or smoking, we knew she would
+lie out of it, so we waited."
+
+"We knew she hated you so that she couldn't help telling you," added
+Cary.
+
+"Hated me?" I murmured.  "What for?"
+
+Cary blushed furiously, and looked at Aubrey.
+
+"Has Ar--  Have you--" I stammered, eagerly.
+
+Cary nodded and Aubrey looked wise.  Then Cary and I rushed for each
+other.
+
+While we still had our arms around each other crying for joy, Mary
+appeared at the door with her apron filled with the neat little jars of
+jellies and marmalades I had got for Flora's breakfasts.  They had not
+been opened.  Mary regarded me with grim but whimsical defiance.
+
+"The little blister never got a blamed one of 'em, Missis!" she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE PRICE OF QUIET
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie were among our frequent visitors in the new
+apartment.  Jimmie can never realize that I am really married, and in
+view of our manifold travelling experiences together he regards the
+Angel with an eye in which sympathy and apprehension are mingled.
+
+His congratulations at the wedding were unique.  "I'd like to
+congratulate you, old man," he said, wringing the Angel's hand, "but
+honestly I think you are up against it."
+
+To me at their first call he said:
+
+"What will you do with such a man--you, who have gone scrapping through
+life, browbeating gentle souls like myself into giving you your own way
+on every point, and letting you ride rough-shod over us without a
+protest?  _He_ requires consideration and tact and a degree of
+courtesy--none of which you possess.  And you can't drag him away from
+his writing to go to the morgue or a pawn-shop with you the way you did
+me in Europe.  And most of all he must have quiet.  Gee whiz!  There
+will be hours together when you must hold your tongue.  You'll die!"
+
+"No, I won't," I declared.  "You don't know him.  He is an Angel."  And
+with that the argument closed, for Jimmie went off into such a fit of
+laughter that he choked, and his wife came in a fright to find me
+pounding him on the back with unnecessary force.
+
+"But why," said Jimmie, when order had been restored, "did you take an
+apartment, when Aubrey's chief requirement is absence of noise!
+Furthermore, why do you live in New York, that city which reigns
+supreme in its accumulation of unnecessary bedlam?"
+
+"Ah, we have thought of all those things," I said, proudly.  "First, we
+avoided a street paved with cobblestones.  Second, we took the top
+floor.  Third, there are no houses opposite--only the Park."
+
+"But best of all," said the Angel, speaking for the first time, as
+Jimmie noted, "it is in the lease that no children are allowed, for
+children, after all, are the most noise-producing animals which exist.
+So if an apartment can be noise-proof--"
+
+"Exactly," cut in Jimmie.  "If!"
+
+"That's what I say--if it can," said the Angel, "this one should prove
+so.  Faith and I certainly took sufficient pains in selecting it."
+
+"Well, I don't want to discourage you," said Jimmie, and then, after
+the manner of those who begin their sentences in that way, he proceeded
+to discourage us in every sort of ingenious fashion which lay at his
+command.  Verily, friends are invaluable in domestic crises!
+
+Nevertheless, his gloomy prophecies disturbed us.  We tried to make
+light of our fears--to pooh-pooh them--to pretend a scorn for Jimmie's
+opinions, which in secret we were far from feeling, for the fact
+remained that the Jimmies were experienced and we were not.  "Living in
+an apartment," Jimmie had declared, "is like driving.  You may have
+perfect control over your own horse, but you have constantly to fear
+the bad driving of other people."
+
+These words kept ringing in our ears.  We never forgot for a moment
+that there were people under us.  We crept in gently if a supper after
+the theatre kept us out until two in the morning.  We never allowed the
+piano to be played after ten in the evening nor before breakfast.  We
+gave up the loved society of our dog, and boarded him in the country
+because dogs, cats, and parrots were not allowed.
+
+But day by day we found that each one of these self-inflicted maxims
+was being violated by all the other residents.  Singing popular songs,
+a pianola, half a dozen fox terriers, laughing and shouting good nights
+in the corridors kept us awake half the night, and worst of all, what
+we patiently submitted to as visitors with children, we, to our horror,
+discovered were residents with children, and children of the most
+detested sort at that.  Five of these hyenas in human form lived below
+us.  Their parents were of the easy-going sort.  They had all come from
+a plantation in Virginia, and they had brought their plantation manners
+with them.
+
+Now, ordinary children are bad enough, and even well-trained ones at
+that, in the matter of noise, but the noises made by the Gottlieb
+children were something too appalling to be called by the plain,
+ordinary word.  They had never learned to close a door.  They slammed
+it, and every cup and saucer on our floor danced in reply.  When their
+mother wanted them, she never thought of going to the room they were in
+to speak to them.  She sat still and called.  They yelled back defiant
+negatives or whining questions, and then the negro nurse was sent, and
+she hauled them in by one arm, their legs dragging rebelliously on the
+floor and their other arm clutching wildly at pillars or furniture to
+delay their reluctant progress.
+
+They had a piano, and all five of them took piano lessons.  Out of the
+kindness of their hearts they invited the three children who lived
+opposite them on the same floor to practise on their piano, so that
+from seven in the morning until nine at night we were treated to
+five-finger exercises and scales.  Their favourite diversion was a game
+which consisted of the entire eight racing through their apartment,
+jumping the nursery bed, and landing against the wall beyond.  They had
+hardwood floors and no rugs.
+
+And the Angel must have quiet in which to write!
+
+We discussed the situation, and resolved to take action.  Move?
+Certainly not!  We had done our best in taking this apartment, and we
+modestly felt that our best was not to be sneezed at.  We would make
+the other people move,--the impertinent people who had dared to produce
+children off the premises, and then to introduce them ready-made in a
+non-children apartment-house.  Of course a landlord could not protect
+himself against the home-grown article, so to speak, but he could
+defend both himself and us against articles of foreign manufacture, and
+so flagrantly, as evidenced by the names of these "made in Germany."
+
+Other noises which stunned us were remediable by other means.  For
+example, the janitor of the apartment-house which stood next had a
+pleasant little habit of three times a day emptying some dozen or more
+metal garbage-cans in the stone-paved court, and as these with their
+lids and handles merrily jingled back into place, a roar as if from a
+boiler factory rose, reverberating between the high buildings until,
+when it reached the sensitive ears of the Jardines, it created
+pandemonium.
+
+At such times the Angel used to look at me in dumb but helpless misery.
+I tried bribing the janitor, but they changed so often I couldn't
+afford it.  Then, without a word to the Angel, I appealed to the Health
+Department.  I made a stirring plea.  I set forth that not only our
+health, but our lives (by which I meant our pocketbooks, because the
+Angel could not write in a noise), were threatened, and I implored
+protection.
+
+An Irishman answered.  God bless soft-hearted, pleasant-spoken
+Irishmen!  This one rescued us from a slow death by torture.  He was
+amenable to blarney.  He got it.  The result was that never again did
+any of the serial of janitors, which ran continuously next door, empty
+garbage-cans in the court.
+
+Rendered jubilant by this victory, we confidently prepared to meet the
+agents of our building.  But before we could arrange this, Considine,
+the novelist who had come to New York for the winter, called.  He was
+one of the Angel's dearest friends, and we greeted him with effusion.
+
+"I've come to say good-bye," he said at once.  "I'm off to-morrow for
+my farm."
+
+"For a visit?" I cried, unwilling to believe the worst.
+
+"No, for good.  I'm done.  I'm finished.  New York has put an end to
+me!"
+
+"Why, how do you mean?" we asked, in a breath.
+
+"The noise!  The blankety, blankety, et cetera noise of this ditto
+ditto town!  The remainder of these remarks will be sent in a plain,
+sealed envelope upon application and the receipt of a two-cent stamp!"
+
+The Angel and I looked at each other.  We dared not speak.
+
+"How--why--" I faltered at last.
+
+It was all Considine needed--perhaps more than he needed--to set him
+going.
+
+"I came here under contract, as you know.  I was behindhand in my work,
+but I hoped that the inspiration I would receive from the society of my
+fellow authors would give me an impetus I lacked in the country.  There
+I often have to spur myself to my work.  Here I hoped to work more
+steadily and with less effort.  Ye gods!"  He got up and strode around
+the apartment.  "Ye gods!  What fallacies we provincials believe!  I
+was in heaven on my farm and didn't know it!  And from that celestial
+paradise of peace and quiet and tranquillity of nature, I deliberately
+came to this--with a view of bettering my surroundings!  When I think
+of it--when I consider the money I have spent and the time I have
+lost--" he stopped by reason of choking.
+
+"Why, do you know," he began again, squaring around on the Angel, "I've
+spent twenty thousand dollars on that apartment of mine, trying to make
+it sound-proof so that I could make ten thousand by writing!  I rented
+the apartment below me--had to, in order to get a fellow out whose son
+was learning the violin.  I've bribed, threatened, enjoined, and at the
+last a subway explosion of dynamite broke all the double windows and
+mirrors, knocked down my Italian chandeliers, and--people tell me I
+have no redress!  Now they have started some kind of a drilling machine
+in the next block that runs all night, and I can't sleep.  New York to
+live in?  New York to work in?  Why, I'd rather be a yellow dog in
+Louisville than to be Mayor of New York!"
+
+But before he could go the bell rang and Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie walked in,
+so then Considine came back for ten minutes, and stayed two hours.
+
+We told them what we had been discussing, and then we all took
+comfortable chairs.  Cigars and tall glasses with ice and decanters and
+things that fizz were produced, and, as Jimmie said, "we had such a
+hammerfest on the City of New York as the old town hadn't experienced
+in many a long day."
+
+But then, when you come to think of it, didn't she deserve it?
+
+In New York the elevated trains thundering over your head and darkening
+the street, surface electric cars beneath them being run at lightning
+speed, the street paved with cobblestones over which delivery carts are
+being driven at a pace which is cruelty to animals, form a combination
+of noises compared to which a battery of artillery in action is a
+lullaby, and which I defy any other city in the world to equal.  A hen
+crossing a country lane in front of a carriage, squawking and
+wild-eyed, is a picture of my state of mind whenever I have a street to
+cross.  Yesterday there were two street-car accidents and one runaway,
+which I saw with my own eyes in an hour's outing, and I had no sooner
+locked myself in my sixth-floor apartment with a sigh of relief at
+being saved from sudden death when a crash came in the street below,
+and by hanging out of the window I saw that an electric car had struck
+a plate-glass delivery wagon in the rear, upset it, smashed the glass,
+thrown the horse on his side, and so pushed them, horse, cart, and all,
+for a quarter of a block before the car could be stopped.  I shrieked
+loud and long, but in the noise of the city no one heard me, and all
+the good it did was to ease my own mind.
+
+New York is a good place to come to, to be amused, or to spend money,
+but as a city of terrific and unnecessary noises, there is not one in
+the world which can compare to it.
+
+Scissors-grinders are allowed to use a bugle--a bugle, mind you, well
+known to be the most far-reaching sound of all sounds, and intended to
+carry over the roar of even artillery, else why is it used in a battle?
+So this bugling begins about seven in the morning, and penetrates the
+most hermetically sealed apartments.  Then the street-cleaners, the
+"White Wings," garbage and ash-can men begin their deadly rounds, and
+the clang of dashing empty metal cans on the stone-paved courts and
+areas reverberates between high buildings until one longs for the
+silence of the grave.
+
+The noise and shock of blasting rock is incessant.  They are blasting
+all along the Hudson shore and in Central Park.  It sounds like
+cannonading, and the succession of explosions sometimes wakens one
+before dawn or after midnight with the frightened conviction that a
+foreign fleet is upon us to force us to reduce the tariff.  The
+blasting occasionally goes a little too far, and breaks windows or
+brings down pieces of the ceiling.  Last week it caved in a house and
+broke some arms and legs of the occupants.  One woman went into
+convulsions, and was rigid for hours from the shock, but as nobody was
+killed no action was taken.
+
+Old clothes men are permitted a string of bells on their carts, which
+all jangle out of tune and at once, while street-cries of all
+descriptions abound in such numbers and of such a quality that I often
+wonder that the very babies trundled by in their perambulators do not
+go into spasms with the confusion of it.
+
+Considine and I stated all this with some excusable heat while the
+Angel was serving our guests with what their different tastes demanded.
+It always gives me a feeling of unholy joy seeing Mrs. Jimmie trying to
+join her husband in his low pleasures.  She regarded it as a religious
+duty to take beer when he did while we were abroad, but in England and
+here he takes whiskey and soda, so as champagne is not always on tap in
+people's houses, sometimes she tries to emulate his example.
+
+Have you ever seen anybody take cod-liver oil?  Well, that is the look
+which comes over Mrs. Jimmie's face when the odour of whiskey assails
+her aristocratic nostrils.  Nevertheless she valiantly sits the whole
+evening through with her long glass in her hand.  The ice melts and the
+whole mess grows warm and nauseous, but she hangs on, sipping at it
+with an air of determined enjoyment painful to see.  If she did as she
+would like, she would either hold her nose and gulp it all down at once
+or else she would fling glass and all out of the window.
+
+In vain we all try to make it easy for her to refuse.  If we don't
+offer it she looks hurt, so the kindest thing we can do is to pretend
+we notice nothing, and to let her believe that she is her husband's
+boon companion, since that is her futile ambition.
+
+Jimmie crossed his feet, blew a cloud of smoke into the air, and
+carried on the attack by saying:
+
+"London, Paris, and Berlin all put together cannot furnish the noise of
+New York, while the roar of Chicago is the stillness of a cathedral
+compared to it.  And most of it, I may be allowed to state, is entirely
+unnecessary.  The papers are full of accounts of nervous collapses, the
+sanatoria are crowded, while I never heard as much about insanity in
+the whole of my life elsewhere as I have heard in New York in one year.
+There is not a day in which the papers do not contain some mention of
+insane wards in the city hospitals, but people here are so accustomed
+to it, that no one except a newcomer like yourself would be likely to
+notice it."
+
+Considine nodded.
+
+"I lay fully one-half of it to the incessant noises which prey upon
+even strong nerves for nine months of the year without our realizing
+them," he said, "and these so work upon the nervous system that it only
+takes a slight shock to bring about a collapse, and then no weeks in
+the country, no physic, no tonics can avail.  It means a rest cure or
+the insane ward.  It is typical of our American civilization.  New
+Yorkers are the most nervous people I ever saw.  The children are
+nervous; little street urchins, who should not know what nerves are,
+tremble with nervous tension, while the exodus to the country on Friday
+nights fairly empties the town.   Everybody wants to 'get away from the
+noise,' and it is an undisputed fact that men who have no right to
+allow themselves the luxury take every Saturday as a holiday, so that
+in many lines of business so many men are known to be out of town on
+Saturdays that business is practically suspended on that day except for
+routine work.  This is true to such an extent in no other city that I
+know of, and why?  It is the noise.  Distracted nature clamours for a
+cessation of it, and the unfortunate who cannot afford the luxury must
+pay the penalty.  It is a question for the Board of Health."
+
+"Poor old chap!" said Jimmie.  "It comes hard enough on us common
+people, but how writing chaps like you and Aubrey stand it, I can't
+see.  I should think you'd find New York the very devil to write in."
+
+"In some ways we do," said the Angel, "but it has its compensations.
+For example, not even Paris is so beautifully situated as New York.
+The tall office buildings in the lower end of town look down upon river
+sights and shipping with a broad expanse of blue water and green shores
+which a man would cross the ocean to see on the other side.  The Hudson
+beautifies the West Side.  Central Park is in my eyes the most
+beautiful park I ever saw.  With its rocks and rolling greens, its
+trees and wild flowers, it forms a spot of loveliness that makes in the
+midst of the hot, rushing, busy city a dream of soothing repose.
+Washington Heights is a crowning wilderness looking down upon the city
+from Fort George, while the Sound and a glimpse of the village beyond
+seen through the faint blue haze of distance lend a touch of fairylike
+enchantment.  The Jersey shore and the Palisades are one long drawn out
+joy, so that, turn where you will, you find New York beautiful."
+
+"Then, too," said Mrs. Jimmie, speaking for the first time, "New York
+is old, and say what you will you feel the charm of the established,
+and it gives you a sense of satisfaction to realize that you can't
+detect the odour of varnish and new paint.  New York has got beyond it,
+and has begun to take on the gray of age."
+
+"The churches show this," I cut in.  "They are beautiful
+stepping-places in the rush of city life.  They cool and steady, and
+their history and traditions form a restful contrast to the bustle of
+the marketplace."
+
+"But as to those who worship in these beautiful spots," said Considine,
+"it is safe to say that church parade in Fifth Avenue is an even
+smarter spectacle than church parade in Hyde Park, for American women
+have an air, a carriage, and a taste in dress which English women as a
+race can never acquire.  In Hyde Park on Sunday morning, during the
+season, one will see half a dozen beauties whose clothes are Parisian
+and the loveliness of whose whole effect almost takes the breath away,
+but the general run of the other women makes one want to close one's
+eyes.  In America the average woman is lovely enough to make each one
+worth looking at, while the word 'frump,' which is continually useful
+in England, might almost be dropped from the American language.
+
+"As to manners in New York," he went on, "well, patriotic as I am,
+American manners in public in any city almost make me long for the
+outward politeness and inward insincerity of the Gallic nations.
+Russians and Poles are the only ones I have observed to be alike both
+in public and in private.  In New York street-car etiquette or the
+etiquette of any public conveyance is something highly interesting from
+its variety of selfishness and rudeness."
+
+"That is true," I said, "New York manners are seldom aggressively rude,
+except on the elevated trains.  In other cities you are pushed about,
+walked over, elbowed aside, and often bodily hurt in crowds of their
+own selfish making.  Not so in New York.  Civilization has gone a step
+further here.  In surface cars men never step on you, but they gently
+step ahead of you and take the seat you are aiming for, and if they can
+sit sidewise and occupy one and a half seats, and if you beg two of
+them to move closer together and let you have the remaining space, the
+two men may rise, one nearly always does and takes off his hat and begs
+you to have his place.  Then all the eyes in the car are fixed on
+you--not reprovingly, or smilingly, or in derision or reproach, but
+earnestly, as if you form a social study which it might be worth their
+while to investigate.  Never once during a year's observance of
+surface-car phenomena have I seen a row of luxuriously seated people
+make a movement to give place to a new-comer, no matter how old or how
+well gowned she may be.  Even ladies will sometimes give their seats to
+each other.  But they won't 'move up.'"
+
+"In Denver," said Jimmie, "I once heard a conductor call out 'The gents
+will please step forward and the ladies set closter.'  If I knew where
+that man was I would try to get him a position with the Metropolitan,
+for most of them feel as a conductor said here in New York when I
+jumped on him for not obeying my signal, 'Schmall bit do _I_ care!'"
+
+"Then the cars themselves," I cried, "Aren't they the most awful
+things!  I can earnestly commend the surface cars of New York as the
+most awkward and uncomfortable to climb in and out of that I have ever
+seen.  I use the word 'climb' advisedly, as the step is so high that
+one must take both hands to hoist oneself, while the conductor is
+generally obliged to reach down and seize the ambitious woman by the
+arm to assist her.  The bell rings while you are still on the lower
+step; the conductor says, 'Step lively, please;' the car attains its
+maximum of speed at one jump; the conductor puts his dirty hand on your
+white silk back and gives you a forward shove, and you plunge into the
+nearest seat, apologizing to the people on each side of you for having
+sat in their laps.  Then comes a cry, 'Hold fast,' and around a curve
+you go at a speed which throws people down, and on one occasion I saw a
+woman pitched from her seat.
+
+"The Boston street railway system is the most perfect of any American
+city that I know of.  There they pursue such a leisurely course that a
+Boston woman never rises from her seat until the car has come to a full
+stop.  In fact, Bee and I were identified as strangers in town by the
+husband of our friend who met us at the terminus of one of the
+street-car lines, with his carriage.  His never having seen us, and
+approaching us without hesitation, naturally led us to ask how he knew
+us.  He answered:
+
+"'Oh, I saw you walking through the car before it reached the corner
+and standing on the platform when it stopped, so I said to myself,
+"There they are!"'"
+
+"I can easily believe you," said Considine, "but in saying that the
+etiquette of any public conveyance in New York is interesting from its
+varieties of selfishness, oughtn't you to confine your statement to
+surface-cars, elevated roads, and ferry-boats, and oughtn't you to make
+an exception of that dignified relic of antiquity, the Fifth Avenue
+stage?  The most uncomfortable vehicle going, yet let me give the angel
+his due--in a stage people do move up; everybody waits on everybody
+else; hands fare; rings for change, and pays all of the old-fashioned
+courtesies which went from a busy city life with the advent of the
+conductor, the autocrat of ill manners and indifference."
+
+"Superstition evidently does not obtain in New York on one subject at
+least," said Aubrey, "and that is the bad luck supposing to accrue from
+crossing a funeral procession.  Never in any other city in the world
+have I seen such rudeness exhibited toward the following of the dead to
+their last resting-place as I have seen in New York.  The beautiful
+custom in Catholic countries not only of giving them the right of way,
+but of the men removing their hats while the procession passes, has
+resolved itself into a funeral procession going on the run; the driver
+of the hearse watching his chance and fairly ducking between trucks and
+surface-cars, jolting the casket over the tracks until I myself have
+seen the wreaths slip from their places, and sometimes for five or ten
+minutes the hearse separated from its following carriages by a
+procession of vehicles which the policeman at the crossing had
+permitted to interfere.  Such a proceeding is a disgrace to our boasted
+civilization.  We are not yet too busy nor too poor to allow our
+business to pause for a moment to let the solemn procession of the dead
+pass uninterrupted and in dignity to its last resting-place.  Such
+consideration would permit the hearse to be driven at a reasonably slow
+pace in keeping with the mournful feelings of its followers.  As it is
+now, New York funerals go at almost the pace of automobiles."
+
+"My brother once told me," I said, "that I was so slow that some day I
+would get run over by a hearse.  Not being an acrobat, that fate may
+yet overtake me in New York and yet be no disgrace to my activity."
+
+"I am more afraid of automobiles," said Considine, shaking his head,
+"than I am of what I shall get in the next world.  I wouldn't own one
+or even ride in one to save myself from hanging.   I always 'screech,'
+as Faith says, when my cab meets one."
+
+"You don't know how quickly they can be stopped, Considine," said
+Jimmie.
+
+"That may be," retorted Considine, "but are you going to pad your
+broughams and put fenders on your cab horses?"
+
+"I was in an electric cab not long ago," I said, "and a bicyclist rode
+daringly in front of us.  In crossing the trolley-tracks, his bicycle
+naturally slackened a little, and my careful chauffeur brought the
+machine to a dead stop.  Result that I was pitched out over the
+dashboard and barely saved myself from landing on my head.
+
+"When I was gathered up and put back I asked the man why he stopped so
+suddenly (I admit that it was a foolish question, but as I am always
+one who asks the grocer if his eggs are fresh, I may be pardoned for
+this one), and he answered: 'Well, did you want me to kill that man?'
+I replied that of the two alternatives I would infinitely have
+preferred to kill the man to being killed myself,--a reply which so
+offended the dignity of my Jehu that he charged me double.  I never did
+get on very well with cab-drivers."
+
+Jimmie laughed.  He was remembering the time I knocked a Paris cabman's
+hat off with my parasol to make him stop his cab.  My methods are
+inclined to be a little forceful if I am frightened.
+
+"But New York is a city of resources," I continued.  "There is always
+somewhere to go!  New York only wakes up at night and the streets
+present as brilliant a spectacle as Paris, for until the gray dawn
+breaks in the sky the streets are full of pleasure-seekers; cabs and
+private carriages flit to and fro; the clubs, restaurants, and
+supper-rooms are full to overflowing, the lights flare, and the
+ceaseless whirl of America's greatest city goes on and on.  And nobody
+ever looks bored or tired as they do in England.  We are all having a
+good time, and we don't care who knows it.  I love New York when it is
+time to play."
+
+"Well, we've about done up the old town to-night," said Jimmie, as they
+prepared to leave.  "She has hardly a leg to stand on."
+
+"She deserves it," said Considine, gloomily.  "I'm off.  I'm about to
+desert and go back to my cabbages.  New York won't let you work.  She
+won't help you.  She won't protect you.  She mocks you.  She laughs in
+your face.  I'd rather die than try to work here!"
+
+During every word of this impassioned speech the Angel and I had been
+growing colder and colder.  We could see ourselves just where Considine
+had found himself--driven out of New York by reason of its abominable
+noise.
+
+"And the worst of it is," went on Considine, "is that most of this
+noise is so unnecessary.  It comes from--"
+
+A terrific crash came from down-stairs.  Three doors slammed.  Then
+some one screamed shrilly.  Considine gazed with starting eyes at the
+jingling globes and glasses and actually lost a little colour.
+
+"What is it?" he whispered.
+
+"It is nothing," said the Angel, with a wave of the hand, "but our
+little friends below stairs.  Our neighbour is blessed with five
+charming little olive-branches, who have versatile tastes in athletics,
+and are bubbling over with animal spirits.  We think privately that
+they are the meanest little devils that ever cursed an apartment-house,
+but their noise is dear to their parents, and they would not allow it
+when we fain would boil the children alive or beat them with bed-slats."
+
+Jimmie laughed heartlessly, but Considine took his head between his
+hands.
+
+"They have just illustrated what I was going to say.  Nobody has any
+regard for the rights of others.  Peddlers are allowed horns, and
+cornets, and strings of bells.  Why not allow them to send up poisoned
+balloons to explode in your open windows, and thus call attention to
+their wares?  I wouldn't object a bit more!  Why do parents allow such
+noises?  Have you ever remonstrated with the mother?"
+
+"Oh, yes," said the Angel.  "One day Faith called and apologized to
+Mrs. Gottlieb, but begged to know if she might not take the children
+out herself in order to let me finish a chapter.  But Mrs. Gottlieb was
+justly incensed at any one daring to object to the healthful sports of
+her little brood, and said: 'Mrs. Jardine, my children are in their own
+apartment, and I shall allow them to make all the noise they wish.'"
+
+"And the next day," I broke in, excitedly, "she bought the three girls
+tin horns and the boys drums!"
+
+Considine ground his teeth.
+
+"If our wicked ways of life demanded that each of us should bear some
+horrible affliction, but Providence had mitigated the sentence by
+allowing us to choose our own form of mutilation," he said, slowly,
+"instead of giving up an arm or a leg or an eye, I would give up both
+ears and say, 'Lord, make me deaf!'  For, much as I love music and the
+sound of my friends' voices, I believe that I could give up all
+conversation, and for ever deny myself to Grieg and Beethoven and
+Wagner rather than stand the daily, hourly torture of the street sounds
+of a great city."
+
+He looked around at us and real tears stood in his eyes.
+
+"Do you know," said the Angel, answering the look in his friend's eyes,
+"I believe no one on earth understands the anguish those of us who
+compose suffer from noise.  It is not nervousness which causes us this
+anguish.  It is the creating spirit,--the power of the man who brings
+words to life in literature or who brings tones to life in music.  It
+is part of the artistic temperament, and if I ever saw a child start
+and shake and go white at a sudden noise, I should lay my hand on the
+little chap's head and say to his mother: 'Take care of that child's
+brain, for in it lies the power of the creator of something great.
+Teach him above everything self-expression that he may not labour as
+too many do, yet labour in vain.'"
+
+I loved Considine for the way he looked at my Angel after that speech
+and the way he moved toward him and took his hand in his big, soft,
+strong grip.
+
+"I can't stand it!" he declared, standing up.  "I'm going.  I wouldn't
+live in New York if they'd give me the town.  I'm going back to my five
+hundred acres and get in the middle of it with a revolver, and I'll
+shoot anything that approaches!"
+
+But when they had all gone something like dismay seized us.
+
+"He has so much more money than we have," I wailed, "and if _he_ can't
+do anything where do we come in, I'd like to know!"
+
+The Angel paced up and down thoughtfully with his hands behind his
+back,--an attitude conducive to deep meditation in men, I have observed.
+
+"I think I have it," he said, finally.  "Considine is too impulsive.
+He was not firm enough.  Now I got an important letter from the agents
+to-day, saying that they could do nothing about the noise of the
+children.  In the lease it expressly mentions them.  I shall simply
+hold back the rent and see what that produces!"
+
+I was filled with admiration at the Angel's firmness.
+
+The result was speedily produced, such as it was.  Jepson called.  He
+called often.  Then we began to get letters, and finally they
+threatened us with eviction.  It made me feel quite Irish.
+
+Then one day the owner and the agents and their lawyer called, and we
+discussed the matter.  They were affable at first, but as the noise
+from the Gottlieb apartment grew more boisterous, their suavity
+departed, for they realized that our grievance was a substantial one,
+yet they declared they could do nothing.
+
+"But it is in the lease," we protested.  Then they delivered themselves
+of what they really had come to say.
+
+"My dear sir," said the owner, "that lease and those rules can never be
+enforced in this city.  They simply don't hold--that's all."
+
+"Very well," I said, triumphantly.  "If the clauses upon which we took
+the apartment do not hold, then neither does the clause regarding the
+payment of the rent obtain."
+
+They all three broke in together with hysterical eagerness:
+
+"Ah, but that does hold.  You must know that, madam."
+
+"The rent clause is the only clause which the law backs up, is it?  We
+have no redress against your getting us here under false pretences?"
+
+They looked at each other uneasily.  Then their masculinity asserted
+itself.  What?  To be thus browbeaten by a woman?  They looked
+commiseratingly at the Angel for being saddled with such a wife.
+
+They stood up to go.  I looked expectantly at Aubrey.
+
+"Gentlemen," he said, quietly.  "You have heard the noises from the
+surrounding apartments to-day, and you have admitted that they were
+extraordinary.  I declare them not to be borne.  If then, you cannot
+mitigate the nuisance, this apartment will be at your disposal from the
+first of February."
+
+They smiled patronizingly.  The lawyer even laid his hand on the
+Angel's shoulder.  He should have known better than that.
+
+"My dear fellow," he said, benevolently.  "You are liable for the whole
+year's rent--until next October.  You will see by your lease."
+
+Aubrey shook his hand off haughtily.
+
+"Provided the lease is signed," he said, quietly.  "Will you gentlemen
+have the goodness to find my signature on this lease?  I haven't even
+returned it to your office."
+
+They examined it with dropped jaws.  They had not even the strength to
+hand it back to him.  Between them it fell to the floor,--the lease
+whose only binding clause was the one regarding the payment of the rent.
+
+"From the first of February," repeated the Angel, politely.
+
+"But my dear sir," protested the lawyer, recovering first.  "Let us see
+if we cannot adjust this little difficulty.  You sign the lease, for we
+cannot rent such an apartment as this in midwinter.  We would lose
+eight months' rent if you gave it up now, and I will myself personally
+see Mr. Gottlieb in regard to his children's noise.  It really is
+abominable."
+
+"We shall move this month," said Aubrey.  "From the first of February
+this apartment is yours."
+
+"You are very stiff about it," said the owner.  "Why not be reasonable?"
+
+"I am perfectly reasonable," said Aubrey, gently.  "I have listened for
+an hour to the justice you administer to a tenant with a signed lease.
+My reason is what is guiding me now."
+
+He rose as he spoke and moved toward the door.
+
+They glared at us both as they went out.
+
+Aubrey sat and figured for a few moments in silence.
+
+"It has cost us quite a little," he said at last, "to learn that such
+as we cannot live in New York.  We will go into the country where the
+right to live, and to live this side of insanity, is guaranteed, not by
+a lease, but by the exact centre of five acres of ground."
+
+"I have always wanted to!" I cried, with enthusiasm.  "We will be
+commuters."
+
+"We will commute," said Aubrey, pausing to let the fire-engines go by,
+"when necessary."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+MOVING
+
+So we began our search for the Quiet Life and the spot wherein to live
+it.  It must be out-of-town, yet not so far but that the Angel and I
+could get to town for an occasional feast of music or the theatre.
+
+We asked those of our friends who were commuters to exploit the glories
+of their own particular towns, but to our minds there was always some
+insuperable objection.
+
+So one day I took down the telephone-book and looked over the names of
+the towns.  Jersey was tabooed on account of its mosquitoes, and both
+Aubrey and I cared nothing for the seashore.  But the Hudson, with its
+beauty and the delight of its hills rising in such a profusion of
+loveliness back of it, seemed to draw us irresistibly.
+
+"Anything within an hour of New York," said Aubrey.
+
+The telephone-book should answer.  I resolved to read until I got a
+"hunch."  That is not good English, but with me it is good sense, which
+is better.
+
+Finally I found a number--97 Clovertown--Bucks, Miss Susan.  Peach
+Orchard.  The hunch was very distinct.  I could fairly see my
+note-paper with Peach Orchard, Clovertown, stamped on it, for I
+instantly made up my mind that Susan must be asked to rent Peach
+Orchard for a term of years and go abroad.  I felt sure that Europe
+would do her good.  The more I thought of these names, the more sure I
+felt that we had arrived.
+
+My next step was to look feverishly through the Clovertown names for a
+real estate agent.  I found one, and without saying a word to the
+Angel, I called him up.
+
+"Hello, Central.  Give me Long Distance.  Hello, Long Distance.  Give
+me sixty-five Clovertown, please!  Yes!  All right.  Is this Close and
+Murphy?  Well, this is New York.  I want to ask you if Peach Orchard is
+to let.  What?  I say, I would like to know if Miss Bucks would like to
+let Peach Orchard?  She would?  Well, how large is it?  Four?  Oh,
+five?  Is there a good house on the place?  And a stable?  That's nice.
+I see.  Yes.  Well, I would like to see it to-day if I could, but it is
+snowing here.  Not snowing there?  Well, we might try.  What time does
+a train leave 125th Street?  In forty minutes?  Well, my husband and I
+will be on that train.  Oh, that's very nice.  Our name is Jardine--Mr.
+and Mrs. Aubrey Jardine.  Yes, I understand.  Very well.  Good-bye."
+
+I hung up the receiver, and rushed into the dining-room.
+
+"Hurry with luncheon, Aubrey!" I said.  "I've rented a place in
+Clovertown, and we go out to take possession to-day.  We leave in forty
+minutes!"
+
+Aubrey looked up with interest.
+
+"I heard you at the telephone.  You are a crazy little cat," he said,
+but I could see that he was charmed.  We love to do crazy things.
+
+"He's going to meet us at the station with a carriage," I explained as
+I struggled into my coat with Mary's help, and Aubrey pawed madly
+around in the dark closet for overshoes for both of us.
+
+Mary flew about like a distracted hen until she saw us safely started.
+Most people would have gone mad at our erratic proceedings, but nothing
+ever disturbed Mary's equanimity.  In fact, crises fairly delighted
+her.  In an emergency she rose to the heights of Napoleon.
+
+Finally we started, caught the train, and arrived.  The gallant Mr.
+Close met us, true to his word, and in five minutes we were on our way
+to Peach Orchard.
+
+As we drove into the grounds, Mr. Close clapped his hand to his
+forehead with an exclamation.
+
+"What is it?" I said, with a sinking heart.
+
+"I've forgotten the key!"
+
+"Never mind," I said, blithely.  "We can easily get in through a
+window.  My husband used to be a burglar."
+
+It never occurred to me that the poor man would take such an idiotic
+remark seriously, so we neither of us looked at him until we had
+examined every door and window to find if haply one had been left
+unlocked.  Nor did we notice that we were doing all the work until
+Aubrey selected the back hall window as the loosest, and opening his
+knife--the wickedest looking pocket-knife I ever saw, by the way--he
+proceeded deftly to turn the lock of the window and then to raise it.
+
+I was so proud of his cleverness that I turned to ensure the admiration
+of Mr. Close also, but the look I encountered froze the smile on my
+lips and the words on my tongue, for the good man was viewing both
+Aubrey and me with the liveliest horror and distrust.
+
+Aubrey turned also at my sudden silence, and the light dawned upon us
+both in the same instant.
+
+Mr. Close had the grace to look quite sheepish to see us both sit down
+abruptly on the top step and shriek with laughter.  But I am sure, in
+my own mind, that he dismissed the idea of burglars in favour of
+lunatics.
+
+But Peach Orchard was well named, for the old house was set down in the
+very midst of it.  Trees were everywhere, and, indeed, they grew so
+close to the house, and they were so tall, that we could not see the
+house properly.  The short winter afternoon was drawing to a close and
+it looked for a moment as if we would have to come again, when on a
+shelf, good Mr. Close, whose business instincts were keener than his
+sense of humour, found an old lamp with about three inches of oil in
+it.  A feverish search for matches resulted in the discovery that his
+match-box was empty, and Aubrey's held only one.
+
+Right here, let me ask just one question of all the smokers all over
+the world.  Why is it, that, needing them more than you need anything
+else on earth,--home or friends or wife or mother or money or position
+or religion or your hope of heaven,--why is it that you never have any
+matches?
+
+Aubrey's one, which he had been saving, as he told me afterward, to
+light a cigarette on the return drive, proved friendly, and the lamp
+smoked instead.  Armed with this rather unsatisfactory torch, we
+explored, and as we went up and down, in and out of the queer old
+place, built a hundred years ago (Mr. Close said!), we decided to take
+it, and most unwisely said so, thereby paying, as usual, the top price
+for something which we could have got at a bargain if we had waited.
+But such is the perennial foolishness and precipitancy of the Jardines.
+
+Evidently Mary had humoured our going out to Clovertown that afternoon
+as one of our mad excursions only, and had not fathomed the possibility
+of our deciding to live there, for when we came home and gaily
+announced that we had rented Peach Orchard, Mary's jaw fell and her lip
+pouted sulkily.
+
+This lasted during dinner.  We could both see that she intended us to
+notice it and question her, and when the coffee had been served and we
+said she might go, she saw that she must open the ball herself, so she
+fingered her apron and said:
+
+"Missis, I shall be sorry not to go with you to Clovertown, but of all
+the towns along the Hudson, that is the one I can't bear to go to!"
+
+"Why, Mary?" I said, for the first time in my life suspecting her of
+the tricks which we afterward came to know were a part of her.
+
+"Because my oldest sister was killed by the railroad right at the
+station at Clovertown, and I was the one to take her away!"
+
+For about the ten thousandth time Mary held the trump.  I felt crushed.
+I could fairly picture the scene, and I knew that no one could face
+such harrowing memories.  As I gazed at her and she saw I was touched,
+tears began to gather in her eyes, brim over and run down her pink
+cheeks.  I felt fairly faint and sick to think of parting with Mary.
+
+Then something told me to probe the matter.
+
+"When was your sister killed, Mary?" I said.
+
+"Just twenty-two years ago come Washington's Birthday, Missis dear,"
+whimpered Mary, with her apron at her eye.
+
+I began to laugh heartlessly.
+
+"And wasn't that the sister you fought with and hated--the one you have
+told me a dozen times you were glad to know was dead?" I went on.
+
+Mary nodded, rather sheepishly.  I saw she was weakening, so I became
+firm.
+
+"Now, Mary," I said, and it was the first time I ever had spoken
+sternly to her, "put that apron down, and don't let me hear another
+word about your not going to Clovertown.  Of course you are going!  Any
+grief, no matter what, could be cured in twenty-two years,--let alone a
+grief which never was a grief.  And you did _not_ see her after she was
+dead--you told me you wouldn't go.  And what made you the maddest was
+having to pay the funeral expenses when she had a husband who could
+have paid them if he would only work.  So now, you can just stop those
+onion tears," I said, marching haughtily toward the door, followed
+somewhat sheepishly by the Angel, who longed to turn back and mitigate
+my sternness.
+
+The longing finally conquered him.
+
+"Besides, Mary," he said, pacifically, turning back at the door, "we
+couldn't possibly get along without you.  You are absolutely necessary
+to us.  Who, I ask you, would do up my white waistcoat and duck
+trousers if _you_ left?"
+
+Mary beamed at this seductive flattery, and bridled visibly.
+
+"Tell me all about it, Boss dear," she said.
+
+And in so doing she and we both forgot that she had suggested going,
+and nothing more was ever said about it.
+
+Seldom can I look back, however, and recall an instance when we
+obtained more feverish and thrilling joy than from those next few days
+when we mentally improved and furnished Peach Orchard.
+
+With what excitement did we lay rugs and place furniture in our mind's
+eye!  How we appealed frantically to each other to decide whether there
+were three or four windows in the library, and with what complacency
+did we discover that, owing to a shrewd forethought of my own in
+furnishing the smoking and living rooms in our apartment with similar
+curtains, we now had enough for the great, light, airy sitting-room at
+Peach Orchard.
+
+Then we took a long breath and fell with fresh avidity into the subject
+of improvements.  Mr. Close was of the opinion that Susan would do
+nothing--could do nothing rather, as she had a consumptive brother who
+must live in the Adirondacks, and her resources were few.  Therefore,
+we recklessly decided that if she would give us an option on the place
+for another year, we would make the improvements ourselves.  Fools!
+
+Yet why fools!  Never have we so enjoyed spending money, and as Anthony
+Hope says that "economy is going without something you want, for fear
+that sometime you'll want something which probably you won't want," we
+felt upheld and strengthened in the knowledge that we were never, by
+any means, economical.
+
+But the Angel was prospering.  Those who frankly predicted that we
+would starve or be divorced were now glad to sit at our well-set table
+and smoke the Angel's good cigars and sip his excellent wines.  And
+feeling that we might branch out a _little_, we promptly branched out a
+great deal, and nearly went to smash in consequence.
+
+But God watches over children and fools, and we were saved, and sped
+upon our way in a manner so like a special dispensation of Providence
+that no lesson was learned to teach us to be more careful next time.
+In fact, it encouraged us in our recklessness, for in our darkest hour
+the Angel's first play was accepted, and, being staged, was so
+instantaneously a success that he gave up novels altogether and began
+to devote himself to the drama.  He devoted to it, I mean to say, all
+the time he could spare from the improving of Peach Orchard.
+
+Those days, the first of our prosperity and the first of our
+housekeeping in a real house, were the happiest we had ever known.
+Susan had been persuaded to let the place for a term of years with an
+option to buy, so we felt as if we owned it already.  But that is a
+peculiarity of the Jardines.
+
+We tore out the old plumbing, we put in two new bathrooms.  We made a
+laundry out of the storeroom.  We cut doors and threw rooms together
+which never had associated before, and we turned all the windows which
+gave upon the porches into doors, so that we could step out-of-doors at
+will.  We ordered our porch screened entirely, and planned to furnish
+it as a study for Aubrey.  We put paper-hangers, painters, gas,
+telephone, and electric men at work all over the house, and made them
+promise, yea, even swear, to finish their work by a certain time.
+
+But, having, as we thought, learned wisdom by experience, we put no
+faith in their promises, but engaged Mr. Close in person to go every
+day to superintend things.
+
+As the day drew near to move we became most agitated as to ways and
+means.  It seemed a gigantic task to crate and barrel everything and
+move from one town to another, and while we discussed hiring a car,
+Mary interrupted.
+
+"Excuse me, Boss and Missis dear, for putting in my two cents, but you
+surely aren't thinking of sending all the furniture by freight, when
+vans are so much more convenient?"
+
+"Vans?" we cried.  "Will vans move us thirty miles?"
+
+"Fifty, if you like," said Mary, promptly.
+
+"From one town to another?"
+
+"From one State to another, and without taking the pins out of the
+cushions or the sugar out of the bowls."
+
+At once the idea of the sugar-bowls and pincushions fascinated me.  I
+begged Aubrey to investigate, and he agreed with enthusiasm to do it
+the very next day.
+
+"If I might suggest," said Mary again, "all Boss will have to do is to
+telephone to two or three different companies to come and estimate the
+cost.  He won't have to run after 'em any farther than the telephone."
+
+We followed her suggestion, and to our delight discovered that all she
+said was true and more.  They agreed to insure against breakage,
+thieves, and fire; to pack all the stuff in vans one day, take them to
+their warehouse for the early part of the night, and start at one
+o'clock for Clovertown,--agreeing to make the whole distance, unload,
+place the furniture, and unpack the china before leaving that night.
+
+We need not lift a hand.  All we had to do was to go to a hotel for one
+night, and take a train for Clovertown the next morning.
+
+It was almost too easy.  I reflected what "moving" meant to people who
+live in small towns where such conveniences do not exist.  Verily, New
+York might be noisy, but she was a city of superb conveniences.  Only
+Paris excels her in her purveying shops, for in Paris one can buy the
+wing of a chicken only, and that just around the corner, while in New
+York one must buy at least the whole fowl (and pay the price of a house
+and lot in Louisville, let me pause to remark!), but in justice I must
+also add that such luxuries are also "just around the corner."
+
+By implicitly following Mary's advice we saw everything safely placed
+in the vans and move majestically from our door.  Then we betook
+ourselves to the Waldorf, with our "glad rags," as Jimmie had
+commanded, in our suit-cases, and dined in state, and went to Weber and
+Fields afterward.  Jimmie wanted me to hear Weber persuade Lillian
+Russell to invest in oil.
+
+Now at that, the Angel and Mrs. Jimmie simply smiled indulgently.
+While Jimmie and I reeled in our seats and clutched each other's
+sleeves and shrieked (in as ladylike a manner as we could), while tears
+poured down our cheeks and our ribs cramped and our breath failed.
+That is the way Jimmie and I enjoy things.  That is also why we can
+stand it to travel in the same party, and not come home hating each
+other.
+
+But all the time, even in the midst of the fun, my mind turned lovingly
+toward the warehouse where our precious furniture reposed, safely
+packed in those huge red vans.
+
+Jimmie noticed my preoccupation, and said:
+
+"If you could take your mind off coal-scuttles long enough, I would
+like to ask you what you thought of Prince Henry?  Aubrey says you met
+him last week."
+
+"We did, we met him the same day we bought the ice-box," I answered.
+
+"Ye gods!" growled Jimmie, in deep disgust.  "Think of remembering a
+royal prince by the day you bought the ice-box!"
+
+"What most impressed you, dear?" inquired Mrs. Jimmie, sweetly.
+
+"The price!" I answered, cheerfully.  "It was a slightly damaged
+article, so we got it for less than half the original cost of it.  You
+know I do love a bargain, Mrs. Jimmie."
+
+"I meant the prince, dear," said Mrs. Jimmie.
+
+"However, if she prefers to discuss ice-boxes," said Jimmie, politely,
+"by all means, let us bring the conversation down to her level.  It
+will not be the first time I have had to do it."
+
+"I don't care!" I said, stoutly.  "It was far more interesting than
+seeing the prince.  This, you must remember, was our _first_ ice-box.
+The other one was built into the apartment, and we didn't own it."
+
+"I do wish Bee could hear you!" jeered Jimmie.  "Gee, but you will be a
+trial to Bee."
+
+"I always have been," I said.  "She got mad at me just before I was
+married about a thing as foolish as anything _I_ ever heard of.  I had
+calls to pay, and I asked Bee to go with me.  She said she'd go if I'd
+get a carriage, so I said I would, and told her to order it.  But it
+seems that all the good ones were engaged for a funeral, and they sent
+us a one-horse brougham with the driver not in livery.  We didn't
+notice it until we opened the front door.  Then Bee sailed in.  'Why
+are you not in livery?' she demanded.  'I shall certainly report you to
+Mr. Overman.  He ought to be ashamed to send out a driver without a
+livery!'  'If you please, ma'am,' said the man, 'I'm Mr. Overman, and
+rather than disappoint you ladies, as all my men are out, I thought I'd
+drive you myself.'  Well, that was too much for even Bee.  So she
+thanked him, and in we got.  The first house we went to was that of a
+haughty society dame of whose opinion Bee stood much in awe.
+Personally, I thought her an illiterate old bore.  She was newly rich,
+and laid great emphasis upon such things as maids' caps, while tucking
+her own napkin under her chin at dinner.  She followed us to the door
+in an excess of cordiality which amused me, considering everything, and
+there, to our horror, we saw poor old Overman half-way under the horse,
+examining one of its hoofs!  Poor Bee!  I gave one look at her face and
+giggled.  That was enough.  She was so enraged that she wouldn't pay
+another call.  She took me straight home as if I were a bad child, and
+the next day I paid my calls alone."
+
+"And yet," said Jimmie, musingly, "can you or any of us ever forget the
+night that Bee did the skirt dance in Tyrol?"
+
+"Dear Bee!" said Mrs. Jimmie, softly.  "How charming she is!"
+
+"Yet she wouldn't approve of your going to Clovertown," said Jimmie.
+"She hates the bucolic.  Idyls and pastorals are not in it with our rue
+de la Paix Bee.  I'll bet she will never come to see you at Peach
+Orchard."
+
+"Let us hope for the best," said Aubrey.  "It is dangerous to prophesy."
+
+"We're going to keep a cow, Jimmie!" I said, rapturously.
+
+"Well, don't gurgle about it.  You act as if keeping a cow put the
+stamp of the Four Hundred on you.  Did Mary say you might?"
+
+"Mary has given her consent," said Aubrey.  "But I'm wondering how that
+old woman will behave with other servants.  Of course she was all right
+while there was no one else and she was boss of the ranch, but we must
+have two or three now at Peach Orchard, and she is so jealous, I wonder
+if she will let us live with her!"
+
+Well might we have wondered.  Trouble began the very next day.  As we
+went out on the train I noticed that Mary had on her best dress and
+hat.  She had no bag with her, so I wondered how she meant to "settle"
+in such clothes.  The Angel and I had on our worst.
+
+I comforted myself with the reflection that there would not be very
+much dirty work to do.  This would in reality be a kid-glove moving,
+for Mr. Close had telephoned the day before that everything was ready
+for us to move in.  I had even sent a cleaning woman for floors and
+windows.
+
+I had taken the precaution to bring a few silver knives, forks, and
+spoons in my bag.  Then as we got off the train I stopped at a grocery
+and bought a loaf of bread, a tin of devilled ham, one of sardines,
+some butter, and a dozen eggs, so we were at least sure of our luncheon.
+
+We jumped out of the carriage almost before it had stopped, and, while
+Aubrey paid the man, I ran up the steps and into the house.
+
+Such a sight of confusion met my eyes!  The old paper was piled in the
+middle of each floor, and not a new strip on any wall.  One ceiling
+only in the whole house was finished.  Not a hardwood floor had been
+laid.  The lumber was piled in the hall.  Not a chandelier was up.  The
+ragged wires projected from their various holes in ceilings and walls.
+Where was my cleaning woman?  Where were our workmen?  Above all, where
+was the perfidious Mr. Close?
+
+There was no furnace fire, and the water was not turned on.  I ran back
+and Aubrey shouted for the carriage, just turning out of the grounds,
+to come back.
+
+"Go to the plumbers!" I said, incoherently, "and to the electric light
+men, and to the agents, and see where the men are, and bring some
+brooms and buckets and send me a grocer's boy."
+
+He turned away, breathing vengeance.  I felt sorry for Mr. Close.
+
+"And to the telephone company!" I cried, after the departing carriage.
+
+"And to--" but the driver lashed his horses, and I had to give up.
+
+I went back to Mary in her best dress.
+
+"Finished, is it?" she said, sniffing with indignation.  "I suppose the
+agent thought we were flies, and could move in on the ceiling--as
+that's the only thing I can see about the house that's finished!"
+
+"Wait until Mr. Jardine sees the agent!" I said, ominously.  "Then
+something else will be finished, besides the ceiling."
+
+"I hope he'll kill him!" said Mary, pleasantly.
+
+It was a real pleasure to witness the dismay in Mr. Close's face when
+Aubrey returned, bringing him, mentally, by the scruff of the neck.  I
+have seen terriers yanked back to look at things they have "worried" in
+much the same manner that Mr. Close was fetched to Peach Orchard.
+
+"Just look, Mr. Close, if you please," I said, ominously polite.  "You
+telephoned me yesterday and said you had been here personally and seen
+with your own eyes that everything was finished and the house in
+perfect readiness for us to move in."
+
+Mr. Close refused to meet my accusing eye.  He turned green.
+
+There are more ways than one of calling a man a liar.  And some are
+safer than others.
+
+"Did you really have the smoke test put through the plumbing as you
+said you did?" I asked.
+
+Mr. Close eagerly produced the bill.
+
+Plumber's bills are conclusive evidence.
+
+"Did you have the range cleaned and the water-back examined?" demanded
+Aubrey.
+
+Mr. Close swore that he did.  Aubrey led him captive around the house
+and showed him the confusion thereof, Mary grimly following.  I think
+Close preferred Aubrey to me, and me or anybody to Mary, for Mary's
+very spectacles were bristling with anger.  She could see herself, in
+her best dress, having to clean up that mess so that the furniture
+could be moved in.
+
+Then Aubrey's men began to arrive.  The man with the chandeliers.  The
+carpenters to lay the floors.  The man from the water office.  My negro
+cleaning woman and the grocer's boy.  Fortunately, the cleaning woman
+had brought a broom, a mop, and a bucket.
+
+As there were no fires, Aubrey and Mr. Close made one in the furnace;
+Mary and the grocer's boy--or rather the grocer's boy under Mary's
+direction--built one in the range, while I set the woman to sweeping
+one floor for the carpenters to begin on.
+
+Suddenly I heard hurried feet running up the cellar stairs.  The water
+man had turned the water on from the street, and it was gaily pouring
+into the cellar.  Mr. Close is a fat man, but he ran like a jack-rabbit
+to that water main, and shut it off.  Then without daring to
+face--Mary, he started to town for a plumber.
+
+He had not been gone half an hour when the water-back blew up.
+Fortunately, no one was in the kitchen at the time, but the cleaning
+woman turned from black to a dirty gray with fright, and without
+further ado went home.  I can't say that I blamed her.  Aubrey was busy
+putting out the furnace fire and bailing out the cellar, so he did not
+know of that defection.
+
+However, a culmination of such calamities, instead of smiting me to the
+earth, aroused every drop of fighting blood in my whole body.
+
+I went out on the porch to think it over, and as I thought I began to
+laugh.  I laughed until Aubrey heard me and thought I was crying.  He
+came hurrying out, with a face full of anxiety, saying, before he saw
+me:
+
+"Never mind, dear!  I know this is hard on you, but--"
+
+"Well, I'll be--!"
+
+Both of those remarks were Aubrey's.  He was much relieved, however, to
+discover that I was not cast down by all these disasters.  In fact, our
+moving partook more of the delights of camping out than orthodox
+housekeeping, and I soon discovered expedients.
+
+The only fire which did not bid fair to blow our heads off was one in
+the grate in the hall.  On this we boiled water and made tea, and for
+that first luncheon we satisfied ourselves with sardines and devilled
+ham sandwiches.  But as we were obliged to cook on that grate for six
+days, I may as well record now that we grew into expert cooks,
+attempting eggs in all forms, batter-cakes, hoe cakes, fried mush,
+bacon, ham, chops, toast, and fried potatoes,--in fact, no woman knows
+how much she can cook on a common little hard coal grate until three
+hungry people are dependent on it for three meals a day.
+
+We supplemented this by the chafing-dish.  Aubrey says that I should
+say the grate fire supplemented the chafing-dish, for nobody knows what
+can be done with one--in real, urgent housekeeping, I mean, such as
+ours, until one has tried.  It makes a perfect double boiler, and as
+for a _bain Marie_, well, I used to cream potatoes in the top part, and
+when they were all done but the simmering of the cream to thicken it, I
+used to put tomatoes in the bottom part to stew, and put the potato
+part back on the tomatoes for a cover and to keep hot.  Did you ever
+try that?
+
+The kitchen range was discovered to be ruined, the pipes being
+completely full and solid with rust.  It is a miracle that some of us
+were not killed by the explosion.  Mary cheerfully declared her regret
+that Mr. Close had not been bending over the stove with his lie in his
+throat when the water-back remonstrated.  Mary is quite firm in her
+ideas of making "the punishment fit the crime--the punishment fit the
+crime."
+
+But we enjoyed it--that is, Aubrey and I enjoyed it.  Mary wanted us to
+go to an hotel and stay until things were in order, and send the bill
+to Mr. Close.  But even though her suggestion was made at two o'clock
+in the afternoon and no vans had yet appeared, I was firm in my
+decision to sleep in Peach Orchard that night.
+
+My courage had in the meantime been buoyed up by the fact that the
+telephone had been put in, and my friend, the grocer's boy, had brought
+me reinforcements in the shape of plates, tumblers, pots, pans, brooms,
+buckets, and supplies, and had further completed my rapture by
+promising me a kitten.
+
+About three o'clock, I, as lookout, descried the big red vans, each
+drawn by four horses, at the foot of the hill.
+
+Now Clovertown is not full of hills, rather it consists of hills.  It
+is not quite as bad as Mt. St. Michel, for that is all one, but
+Clovertown consists of a series of small Mt. St. Michels, equally
+steep, precipitous, and appalling to climb, also equally lovely and
+bewitching when once you have climbed.
+
+The moving men seemed to realize their steepness, for they put all
+eight of the horses to one van and bravely started up the hill.  But
+alas, they were New York horses, and only capable of dodging elevated
+pillars and of keeping their footing on icy asphalt.  They were not
+used to climbing trees, as we afterward discovered Clovertown horses to
+be quite capable of doing.  So, after straining and pulling and being
+cruelly urged to a feat beyond their strength, we had our first taste
+of the neighbourliness of the people on the next estate.  Their head
+man, called familiarly Eddie Bannon, came to our rescue.
+
+"Take all them horses off," he said, "and I'll pull you up the hill
+with my team of blacks."
+
+We were grateful, but politely incredulous.  What!  One pair of horses
+accomplish a feat which eight had been unable to do.
+
+I grew feverishly excited in watching the exchange.  It was a picture
+to see the incredulity on the countenances of the van men.  They tried
+not to show it, for that would have been impolite, but Eddie Bannon saw
+it, and grinned at their unbelief.
+
+When the blacks were in the traces, Bannon took the reins.  One of the
+men offered him a long wicked-looking whip, but he spurned it.
+
+"No," he said, "if the blacks won't pull for love, they won't for a
+beating."
+
+So then he spoke to them.  Willing hands started the wheels.  The
+gallant little blacks, looking like a pair of ponies before the huge
+van, seemed to lie flat on their bellies as they strained forward,
+digging their sharp little hoofs into the hillside.  The van gave an
+inch--two!  A foot!  Then urged by their master's voice, and for very
+pride of home and race and breed, the gallant blacks pulled for dear
+life, and in a quarter of an hour the van was at our door, and they
+were switching their tails and stamping their hoofs and shaking their
+intelligent heads in the pride of victory.
+
+As for Bannon, he stroked and praised them in an ecstasy of
+self-vindication, and was refusing the van man's offer to buy them at
+"a hundred dollars apiece more than they cost."
+
+Those horses pulled our three vans up our hill, if you will believe it,
+and seemed rather to enjoy the grind they had on the other horses, so
+that, in a fever of appreciation, I had to go and feed apples and sugar
+to all ten of them, and to remind the blacks that the New York horses
+had been pulling those vans since midnight, all of which I begged them
+to take into consideration, while not in the least depreciating their
+own glorious achievement.
+
+The initiated need not be told how, when hardwood floors are being
+laid, furniture is moved from room to room to accommodate the
+carpenters, and the uninitiated will not be interested at the recital.
+It must be experienced to be appreciated.
+
+We lived through it.  We learned not to object when the ice-box was set
+up in the hall so near the grate that the drip-pan had to be emptied
+every hour, and the iceman had to come twice a day.  We learned to step
+over rolls of rugs and to bark our shins on rocking-chairs and to trip
+over hidden objects with only a pleasant smile.
+
+We screened one porch entirely, and furnished it as a study for Aubrey.
+We had now papered and painted the house from top to bottom.  We had
+put in gas, telephone, and electric light, and when we could no longer
+think of any further way to spend money, we turned our attention to the
+garden.
+
+I longed for old Amos, my uncle's gardener and coachman in Louisville.
+His experience would be invaluable, and as the estate had been divided
+and no one had any use for the old grizzled negro, they let me have
+him.  I adored Amos.  It was he who had attended to all my childish
+pleasures on the plantation when I went there to visit, and, in turn,
+he thought "Miss Faith honey" could do no wrong.  It is a comfort to
+have some one in one's childish memory who thinks one can do no wrong,
+even if it is only a servant.
+
+So old Amos came and made flower-beds, and persuaded us to buy a pair
+of horses in addition to the one we had hitherto modestly used, and
+thus, with the aid of friends' and judicious servants' advice, we were
+by way of being landed proprietors, and came to look upon Peach Orchard
+as an estate.
+
+Then the grocer's boy gave me the promised kitten, a common tiger
+kitten, which we named Mitnick, and soon afterward we acquired not only
+one cow, but several, our especial pride being an imported Guernsey,
+which figures quite prominently in my narrative further on.  And as
+Aubrey's unwonted prosperity continued, we endeavoured not to let our
+riches increase too fast, by spending every cent upon which we could
+lay our hands on the place.  But who, who owns a country place, can
+help it?  Or who would help it if he could?
+
+We raised our own flowers and vegetables regardless of expense.  We
+could have ordered American Beauties from New York every day for what
+our hollyhocks and clove pinks and common annuals cost us.  We planted
+five bushels of potatoes and dug three and a half, which made them come
+to a dollar a bushel more than if we had bought them at the grocer's.
+And as to our milk and cream--I once heard the Angel say to Jimmie when
+they came out for a visit:
+
+"Which will you have, old man?  A glass of champagne or a glass of
+milk?  They both cost the same!"
+
+But what of it?  Weren't they _our_ cows which gave the milk?  And
+weren't they _our_ potatoes which rotted in the ground, and _our_
+chickens which died before we could kill them?  It was the pride of
+ownership which ate into our lives and made us quite sickening to our
+friends whose tastes ran to pink teas and hotel verandas, while we,
+poor fools, lived each day nearer to the soil, and loved more dearly
+the earth which nourished us.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+HOW BEE TRIED TO MAKE US SMART
+
+Bee had spent nearly all the time since we were married in Europe, and
+had never, therefore, paid the Angel and me a visit.  But this very
+afternoon she was to arrive.
+
+The arrival of one's sister need not necessarily mean anything as
+alarming as a smallpox scare, but if you knew the somewhat
+revolutionary methods, adopted with a ladylike quiet and a well-bred
+calm, which characterize Bee's visits to her relatives, you would
+excuse our somewhat flurried preparations to entertain her.  In
+addition to our natural desire to do our best for her, Bee had sent a
+letter clearly setting forth the style of entertainment she expected of
+us, and indicating that no paltry excuses would be taken for our not
+coming up to her wishes.
+
+Aubrey was at first for open rebellion.
+
+"If she will take us as she finds us, Bee will be welcome to come and
+stay as long as she likes," he said, while her letter was still fresh
+in our minds.
+
+"She won't," I said, with conviction.  Bee is my sister, or to speak
+more accurately, I am Bee's sister.  "She will come prepared to make
+radical changes in our mode of living, in everything from our religion
+to the way we have hung the pictures."
+
+Aubrey used one small unprintable word.
+
+"Furthermore," I added, "she will be so smooth and plausible about it,
+that you will not object to carrying out her wishes."
+
+The Angel gave me a look.
+
+"If we carry out her wishes, do you think that will be the reason?" he
+asked, quietly.
+
+"No," I cried, impulsively.  "It will be because as a host or as
+anything else you are an Angel."
+
+But he is also a diplomat, as his next remark will show.
+
+"As we are incapable with such generic instructions," he said, tapping
+Bee's letter with his pipe, "of knowing just how we must make ourselves
+over to suit her, and as Bee is never quite happy unless she is
+managing other people's affairs, suppose we wait until she comes and
+gives us specific orders?"
+
+This was what I considered the height, climax, and acme of hospitality.
+
+"Only," he warned me as we drove to the station to meet her, "try to
+remain, within bounds.  The only thing I ha--criticize about Bee is
+that she makes such a coward of you.  Remember when she tries to
+browbeat you, that _I_ consider your taste and common sense better than
+hers, and that in any stand you take I am back of you, no matter what
+it is."
+
+I pressed the Angel's hand gratefully.  Bee's train was appallingly
+near, and my blissful married independence was rapidly degenerating
+into my former state of jelly-like sisterly dependence.
+
+Bee is one of those persons who, consciously or unconsciously, make you
+feel the moment you meet her the difference between your clothes and
+hers.  I had almost forgotten this, but the second she stepped from the
+train I was invisibly informed of the distance between us.  I had put
+on my best, and Aubrey said I looked very well, but in Bee's first
+sweeping glance at me I felt sure that my dress was wrong in the back.
+
+The carriage drove up, and, as Bee stepped into it, I noticed, that the
+horses were too fat, and that, while old Uncle Amos might be a comfort,
+he certainly was not stylish.  I never had thought of these things
+before.
+
+In other words, Bee brought the city into too close juxtaposition for
+the country to enjoy without a Mark-Tapley effort to come out strong
+under trying circumstances.
+
+Our place, Peach Orchard, was old, rambling, and picturesque.  But it
+was also comfortable.  Both the Angel and I hate the idea of pioneering
+or of doing without city comforts.  So we had put bathrooms in here and
+electric lights there, and, by adding city improvements to a country
+estate, we had made of Peach Orchard a dear old place.  It was a place,
+too, over which some people raved, so I was loth to view it through my
+critical sister's eyes for fear of permanent disenchantment.
+
+But at first Bee was very polite.  She affected an interest in the cows
+and the number of hens sitting and how many more chickens we got than
+the people whose estate adjoins.  She spoke of the butter, which so
+filled me with enthusiasm that I sent down to the dairy and had Mary
+bring up Katie's last churning to show her.  I was so interested in the
+colour of the golden rolls in their cheese-cloth coverings that I did
+not notice Bee's expression until afterward.
+
+At five Bee asked for tea.  There were some hurried whispered
+instructions before we got it.  But we pulled through that all right.
+
+Then Bee said:
+
+"Who is coming out to-night?"
+
+"Coming out where?" I asked, genially.
+
+"Why, to dine.  Surely, you don't dine here alone, just you two, every
+evening?"
+
+I looked at Aubrey, and he looked at me.
+
+"To be sure we do!  Do you think we are already so bored by each other
+that we send to New York for people to amuse us?" I cried, with some
+spirit.
+
+"Oh, not at all!" answered Bee, politely.  "Only, I thought perhaps,
+now that I am here, you would have some one from town for me to talk
+to."
+
+"Why, I'll talk to you and so will Aubrey--"
+
+I stopped in confusion.  Again it was something in Bee's expression, I
+felt the same way when I called her attention to the length of the
+sorrels' tails.  It reminded me that Bee preferred them docked.
+
+"It is your first night with us, so nobody will be here to-night," I
+said, rising to the emergency.  "But to-morrow we'll have somebody.
+I'll ask the Jimmies!"
+
+"Or perhaps you could get Captain Featherstone from Fort Hamilton,"
+suggested Bee.
+
+"That is not likely," I said.  "He has so many engagements."
+
+"You might try him--by telephone," suggested Bee again.
+
+"Certainly, I'll ask him," I said, cordially.
+
+Aubrey pressed my handkerchief into my hand with a meaning twinkle in
+his eyes, and when Bee went in to dress, he said:
+
+"It will be rather nice to see old Featherstone again, don't you think?"
+
+"Yes, if we can get him," I answered.
+
+"You poor little goose," said Aubrey, "don't you know they have it all
+arranged, and that Featherstone won't go beyond earshot of the
+telephone until he receives your invitation?"
+
+To be sure!  I had forgotten Bee's methods.
+
+Of course it turned out as Aubrey predicted--it always does.  Captain
+Featherstone accepted with suspicious alacrity.
+
+For three days Bee was polite, and I, who am most easily gulled for a
+person who looks as intelligent as I do, was pluming myself upon the
+fact that our modest mode of living was proving agreeable to Bee's
+jaded European palate.  I wondered if she had noticed my housekeeping.
+She had not expressed herself in any way, but I wondered if she had
+observed how scrupulously neat everything was, that there was no lint
+on the floors and what bully things we had to eat.
+
+I was the more eager to know what she thought from the fact that most
+of my friends had not hesitated to say that I couldn't keep house, and
+the Angel would starve.  And once when I wrote home for a recipe for
+tomato soup and one of the girls heard of it, she actually sent me this
+insulting telegram: "Tomato soup!  You!  O Lord!"
+
+Which just shows you.
+
+So, on the third day, on seeing Bee cast a critical look around, I
+said, unable to wait another minute for the praises I was sure would
+come:
+
+"Well, what do you think of us anyway?"
+
+Then I leaned back with the thought in my mind, "Now here is where, as
+Jimmie would say, I get a bunch of hot air."
+
+Bee wheeled around on me eagerly, and I smiled in anticipation.
+
+"Do you really want to know?"
+
+"Of course I do!" I cried, impatiently.
+
+"You asked me, you know," she said, warningly.
+
+"I know I did.  Go ahead.  Tell me."
+
+"Tell you what I think of you?" said Bee, looking me over as if to find
+a sensitive spot for her blow to fall on.  "Well, I think that you are
+the most hopelessly _bourgeoise_ mortal I ever knew."
+
+I sat up.
+
+"_Bourgeois_!" I exploded.
+
+"From a woman with social possibilities," she went on, "you have
+degenerated into a mere housewife.  And you and Aubrey have become
+positively--"
+
+She paused in order to be more impressive.
+
+"Domestic!" she hissed at last with such vehemence that I bit my
+tongue.  As I put in no defence she went on, gathering momentum as she
+talked.
+
+"When I heard that you had come to live in one of the smartest towns
+along the Hudson, where millionaires are as thick as blackberries, I
+said to myself: 'Now they will rise to the occasion.'  But have you?
+No!  I come, fresh from those gorgeous house-parties in England, to
+find you and Aubrey no better than farmers and--satisfied with
+yourselves!  If you could only get my point of view and see _how_
+satisfied you are!"
+
+"We are happy,--that's what it is!" I interpolated, feebly.
+
+"Then be miserable, but progress!" cried Bee.  "Such a state of social
+stagnation as you exist in is a sin against yours and Aubrey's talents."
+
+I was so stunned I forgot to bow at this unexpected compliment.
+
+"Here you are in the midst of smart traps, servants in livery, horses
+with docked tails and magnificent harnesses, perfectly contented with
+fat, lazy horses, an old negro coachman in a green coat, and carriages
+whose simplicity is simply disgusting.  There is only one really
+magnificent thing about Peach Orchard, and that is the dog."
+
+I felt faint.  To have earned the right to live in Bee's eyes only by a
+dog's breadth!  It was mortifying.
+
+"I don't care so much for myself," pursued Bee, comfortably, "but what
+Sir Wemyss and Lady Lombard will say, _I_ don't know."
+
+"Why, they aren't coming here, are they?" I gasped, sitting up.
+
+"They are, if you will invite them.  Of course I have nowhere to
+entertain them, in return for all they did for me, and I thought
+possibly you would ask them here for a fortnight, but since I have seen
+how you live--unless, perhaps, you would be willing to be smartened up
+a bit?"
+
+Bee looked distinctly hopeful.
+
+"What would you suggest?" I asked, huskily.
+
+Bee cleared her throat in a pleased way.
+
+"First of all, let me be assured that I will not be embarrassing you,"
+she said, politely.  "You can afford to--to branch out a little?"
+
+"Yes," I said.  But my pleasure in the admission was not keen.
+
+"Then," said Bee, "I would advise a coachman and a footman in livery.
+I know just where two excellent Englishmen can be got.  Then you want
+all this made into lawns.  You want to exercise the horses more, and
+have their tails docked.  And above all you want a victoria."
+
+"We have got that," I said.  "I was going to surprise you with it.  It
+came this morning."
+
+"Where is it?" cried Bee, standing up and shaking out her gown.
+
+"In the barn, but perhaps--"
+
+"Let's go and look at it!" exclaimed Bee.  Then as we started she laid
+her hand kindly on my arm.  "And please say 'stables,' not 'barn.'  Sir
+Wemyss might not know what you meant."
+
+I giggled at this, for ours is so hopelessly a barn.  Nobody but a fool
+would try to rejuvenate the huge red structure by the word "stables."
+It sheltered the lovely, soft-eyed Jerseys, a score of sitting hens in
+one retired corner, the horses, the feed, the carriages, and farm
+implements.  Stables indeed!
+
+Bee walked straight by all the animals, who turned their heads and gave
+me a welcome after their several kinds, and stood in delighted
+contemplation before the beautiful shining victoria.
+
+"That is a beauty!" she said, at length.  "Aubrey certainly knows
+what's what, even if you don't.  Now I can tell you what has been in my
+mind all day long.  Oh, do leave that cow alone and listen!  Call the
+dog!"
+
+Jack, our snow-white bulldog, came at a word.  Bee beamed on him.
+
+"It is the latest--the very latest fad in London to drive in a victoria
+with a white bulldog on the seat with you!" she said, complacently.
+"And Jack will be simply perfect for the part."
+
+"Shall I train Aubrey to run behind with his tongue hanging out, in
+Jack's place?" I asked.
+
+"Now there you go--rejecting my simplest suggestion!" cried Bee.  "My
+simplest, my smartest, and my least expensive!  This won't cost you a
+penny, and it will attract attention at once."
+
+I closed my eyes for a moment to contemplate just what sort of
+attention we would attract if the dog and I drove to the Station to
+meet Aubrey.
+
+"Suppose we try it now!" suggested Bee.  "Will you have Amos bring out
+the horses?"
+
+Bee is always scrupulously polite about not giving orders to my
+servants direct, although I have begged her to consider them as her
+own.  I always think that a hostess who neglects to make her guests
+feel at liberty to give an order either is not accustomed to servants
+or else stands in too much awe of them.
+
+Jack, the bulldog, assisted in our preparations with much getting under
+our feet and many hearty tail-waggings.  Little he knew what was to
+follow!
+
+Bee carefully gave me my position at the right, and took her own.
+
+"Now," she said, "there are two equally correct ways of sitting in a
+victoria, neither of which you are doing."
+
+I was quite comfortable, but I immediately sat up.
+
+"It depends upon what you have on," Bee proceeded.  "If you are
+tailor-made and it is morning, you sit straight like this.  If it is
+afternoon and you are all of a Parisian fluff, you recline like this
+and put your feet as far out on the cushion as you can.  It shows off
+your instep."
+
+"It comes very near showing off your garter," I said, indignantly.
+"You needn't expect me to lie down like that and put my feet on the
+coachman's back.  Aubrey would have a fit."
+
+"You are positively low," said Bee, straightening herself.  I giggled
+helplessly at her instructions.  They were so beyond my power to carry
+them out properly.
+
+"Can't I sit like this?  Can't I be comfortable?  What's a victoria
+for, anyhow?" I demanded.
+
+"Call the dog!" was Bee's only answer.
+
+I called him.  He came to the step, his tongue hanging out, his stumpy
+tail wagging.
+
+"What'll you have, girls?" he seemed to say.
+
+"Get in here!  Come up, Jack!" I coaxed, patting the seat invitingly.
+
+Jack put one paw on the step, and wagged his tail harder.  Old Amos's
+shoulders shook.
+
+"Don' reckon you all will git dat dorg into de kerredge, Miss Faith,"
+he said.  "Look lake he smell a trick."
+
+It certainly did look as if he smelled treachery, for nothing could
+persuade him to enter our chariot.  Finally the stable-boy lifted him
+bodily.  Bee seized a paw and I his two ears, and thus protesting we
+dragged him to a position between us.  He was badly frightened by such
+treatment, but remembering that I had been his friend in times past,
+his tail fluttered amiably.  I gave a hurried order to Amos to drive
+out quickly, but as the carriage began to move, Jack's big body
+trembled violently, and he lifted up his voice in a howl of protest
+which woke the echoes.  He tried to jump out, but as both Bee and I had
+our arms around him, more in anxiety than affection, however, he
+realized that we desired his society, and forbore to escape.  Jack is a
+good deal of a gentleman, you see, albeit primitive in his methods of
+showing his discomfort.
+
+"He'll soon stop," said Bee, encouragingly.  "He feels strange at
+first."
+
+But he didn't stop.  The more familiar his surroundings became, the
+more we passed horses and dogs he knew, the keener became his
+humiliation at driving by in enervating luxury, where once he had
+trotted pantingly in the dust and heat.  His howl changed to a deep
+bay, and the bay to a long-drawn wailing, which was so full of pain
+that the passers-by made audible comments.  As for me, I was afraid
+every moment that we would be arrested by a member of the S. P. C. A.,
+but fortunately the populace seemed to think we were on our way to the
+veterinary surgeon for a dangerous operation.
+
+"Poor fellow!" said one, "you can see he is injured by the way they are
+holding him!"
+
+"Ain't them ladies kind-hearted now to take that ugly-lookin' old
+bulldog in that fine carriage to the doctor!" said a factory-girl.
+
+Bee crimsoned.
+
+"Stop laughing!" she said to me in a savage aside.  "I wish I could
+stuff my handkerchief down his throat.  Won't he ever stop?"
+
+"It seems not!" I answered, cheerfully.  "And we really can't consider
+that there is any more style to this manner of driving than if we
+belonged to the _hoi polloi_ who drive with their husbands, and let
+their dogs follow, can we?"
+
+Bee gave me a look.
+
+"I believe you are pinching him to make him howl," she said.
+
+At that unjust accusation I took my arms away from Jack's neck, and
+feeling the affectionate embrace of his lawful mistress relax, he
+violently eluded Bee's, and with a flying leap he was out and away,
+safely restored to his doggish dignity.
+
+By this time quite a little crowd had collected, and Amos's shoulders
+were shaking unmistakably.  Both these things annoyed Bee.  The crowd
+was pitying her.  Amos was laughing at her,--two things which could not
+fail to vex.  She can bear being envied to the verge of being wished a
+violent death with equanimity, but to be pitied or ridiculed?  Haughty
+Bee!  She forgot herself, and gave the order herself to drive fast, and
+the way we drove back to Peach Orchard gave Jack something to do to
+keep up with us.  We may have lacked the style of our driving out, but
+Bee said the pace was good for the sorrels.  To me it savoured of the
+pace of fugitives from justice.
+
+This episode, unfortunate as it had proved, would not have dampened
+Bee's ardour nor discouraged her in the least, had not Jack taken
+matters into his own paws.  He seemed to connect Bee with his day of
+humiliation, and not only eyed her with deep aversion, but howled
+painfully whenever she cornered him.  And as for the victoria--to this
+day, whenever it is taken out, Jack with one leap is under the barn by
+a private entrance which he tunnelled out for himself on that
+never-to-be-forgotten day when we endeavoured to introduce a London
+fashion by means of him.
+
+Nevertheless, her other suggestions were carried out.  The lovely wild
+tangle of berry-bushes and long grass was subdued.  Our old-fashioned
+garden was hidden by a row of firs, while Bee set out beds of cannas
+and geraniums.  To me it was simply hideous, but the look of
+complacency which Bee habitually wore as she thus brought us within the
+pale of civilization more than repaid me for any artistic losses we may
+have sustained.  Bee was my sister and our guest, and could only be
+made happy by feeling that her coming had effected changes for the
+better and by being constantly entertained.  What, then, was more
+simple than to content her with such entertainment as she had requested
+before she came, and by permitting her to smarten us up?  To be sure,
+Aubrey used to tell me every night that he was going to dig up the bed
+of cannas and coleus the moment her back was turned, but as I, too, was
+quite willing to see that done, it seemed to me that I was treading a
+somewhat dangerous road with great discretion and a tact I never should
+get the credit for.  Bee, I felt sure, regarded me as a fool for not
+having done all this at the beginning.
+
+At Bee's request we joined the Country Club and the Copsely Golf Club,
+and I bought more clothes, and the Angel and I found ourselves in a set
+we never had cared for before, but which was amusing enough for a few
+weeks or months at most.
+
+But the episode which broke the backbone of Bee's complacency and
+virtually gave us back our freedom was this:
+
+True to her word, Bee got us an English coachman and a footman, and put
+them into a very smart and highly expensive livery.  But the coachman
+only lasted a week, having too eagerly imbibed of the flowing bowl and
+being discovered by the Angel asleep in his new livery with his head
+sweetly pillowed on the recumbent body of the gentlest cow.  This
+mortified Bee, for the men were, in a sense, her property, so she
+dismissed him, had his livery cleaned, and resolutely set herself to
+the somewhat difficult task of securing a coachman to fit the livery.
+I could, in this, give her no assistance, or, to speak more accurately,
+she would permit none, and finally she announced, with an air of
+triumph which plainly called for congratulations, that she had secured
+what she wanted.
+
+The first time I saw my new coachman, there was something irritatingly
+familiar about him.  He seemed to know me very well, too, and called me
+"Mis' Jardine" with a nod of the head as if we had formerly been pals.
+But under Bee's tutelage I was on terms of distant civility with my
+menials instead of knowing all their joys and sorrows as in the past.
+
+But Bee was charmed with the _tout ensemble_.  She said he matched the
+footman better than the Englishman did, because the Englishman was
+Irish anyway.
+
+So that first afternoon Bee arranged to go to the Copsely Golf Club
+just at the close of the tournament, and to drive up when the porches
+would be filled with the players and their friends having tea.  Bee
+likes to make a dramatic entrance, and often relates in tones of
+positive awe how she once saw a Frenchwoman in an opera-cloak composed
+entirely of white tulle run the whole length of the Grand Opera House
+in Paris in order to make the tulle, which was cut to resemble wings,
+float out diaphanously behind her.
+
+So as we bowled smartly along, the sorrels having been reduced by hard
+driving until they were models of symmetry, the new victoria shining,
+our new liveries glittering in the eyes of the populace, and we
+ourselves ragged out, as Aubrey said, as if our motto had been, "Damn
+the expense," we certainly felt complacent.
+
+"Now watch him pull the sorrels up," whispered Bee.  "I taught him
+myself."
+
+With that we arrived almost at a fire-engine pace in front of the
+club-house steps, and the carriage stopped.  But to our horror, Bee's
+coachman leaned so far backward to pull up that his body was perfectly
+horizontal, and--yes--I was sure of it, he braced his foot against the
+dashboard to get a leverage.  I have seen grocery-boys pull up and turn
+sidewise on their seats in exactly the same manner.
+
+Bee's face was purple.
+
+The sorrels, unaccustomed to such a jerk of their bits, instantly began
+to back, and two men rushed down the steps to our assistance.  But Jehu
+was equal to the occasion.  He slapped the horses' backs with the
+reins, and joyously drove our two off wheels up on to the lowest step
+of the club-house porch.
+
+In that attitude we paused, and _I_ got out.  Bee, after an instant's
+hesitation, gracefully followed suit.  Nor could you tell from her
+placid face that this was not always the way we made our approach.
+
+As for me, I was in a spasm of laughter which Jehu saw.
+
+"I'm sorry, Mis' Jardine," he said, as the gentlemen released the
+sorrels' heads, and he prepared to drive off the steps, "but these
+horses pulls more than Guffin's mare, and I can't get a purchase on 'em
+with this bad hand of mine."
+
+Then I knew who he was!  He drove Guffin's grocery wagon for two
+months, and had lost three fingers of his right hand!
+
+Poor Bee!  But she took it out on me on the way home for not having had
+presentable servants before she came.
+
+Now that she has gone, Amos is driving the sorrels again, and they are
+getting fat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+OUR FIRST HOUSE-PARTY
+
+It was Bee who suggested giving one, but then Bee thought up so many
+things for us to do while she was staying with us!
+
+She invited her friends, Sir Wemyss and Lady Lombard, to spend a week
+at Peach Orchard, and when they accepted she said, to soothe my fright
+at being asked to entertain such grand personages, that if I would
+invite other people and make a house-party, it would take much of the
+responsibility off my shoulders, as then the guests would entertain
+each other.
+
+Then she mentioned Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie, Artie Beguelin and his wife,
+Cary Farquhar, and Captain Featherstone, which would make ten of us in
+all.
+
+To those who did not know Jimmie, this would seem a small number for a
+house-party, but Jimmie in a house all by himself would seem to fill it
+to overflowing with people, but they would all be Jimmie.
+
+As I knew how much solid satisfaction it would be to Mrs. Jimmie to be
+for a whole week in the same house with so famous a beauty as Lady
+Lombard, I acted on Bee's suggestion, and all my people said they would
+come.
+
+Bee came gracefully down-stairs one morning before our guests came.
+She held a letter in her hand.
+
+"Coffee, Bee?" I asked.
+
+"No, thank you.  I had mine in bed."
+
+She wrinkled her brow in perplexity.
+
+"I don't know what to do about it," she murmured.
+
+"About what?"
+
+"Billy.  He wants to see me so much, mother writes.  She thinks I ought
+to come home immediately."
+
+"Let's see," I said.  "It's only eight months since you saw your child.
+Isn't mother rather absurd?"
+
+Bee lifted her eyes.
+
+"Don't be nasty," she said.  "You learned that tone from Aubrey."
+
+Aubrey smiled pleasantly at our guest.
+
+"I didn't!" I said, warmly.  "I used to be quite nasty at times before
+I was married."
+
+Bee showed her little white teeth in a smile.
+
+"I'm glad to hear you admit it," she said, sweetly.
+
+"If you would like to see Billy so much," said Aubrey, politely, "why
+not bring him on here?"
+
+"Could you?" I cried, in delight.  To think of having Billy!  The lamb
+had never been in the country in his life, and he was wild over my
+letters about Peach Orchard.
+
+"I can arrange it, if you like," Aubrey went on--mostly to me, for
+Billy's mother was silently thinking.
+
+"Do have him, Bee!" I cried.  "I won't let him get in your way.  He
+needn't even sleep in your room.  I'll have Norah put up a cot in the
+alcove of the rose room.  She can sleep there, and dress him and
+everything.  You won't be annoyed the least bit."
+
+"Well," said Bee, with graceful reluctance, "if you are sure he won't
+be in your way, and if Aubrey's cousin will bring him, I see no reason
+why he mightn't come."
+
+I almost squealed in my delight.  It would certainly be worth while to
+see the child's eyes when he first saw the calves and little chickens.
+
+I left both Aubrey and Bee at the table while I rushed up-stairs to see
+if the rose room would be just right for him.  I made Aubrey promise to
+arrange everything by telegraph.  Norah loved children, and entered
+into my plans with delight.  Then I flew out to interview old Amos.  He
+had told me only a few days before that the boys on the estate next
+ours wanted to sell their goats and goat carriages.
+
+The days passed rapidly in preparations, but of all my guests, titled
+or otherwise, it was Billy--my Billy--I wanted to see worst.  In two
+days I got a letter.
+
+"Dear Miss Tats," it ran, "I only write to say that I shall be glad to
+come.  If I had not written you a long letter so soon ago, I would
+write more now.  Tell mother to be sure to meet me at the station.
+Don't let her forget that I shall arrive at four-sixteen.  Your
+affectionate little nephew, Billy."
+
+I wept tears of delight over this effusion, and "so soon ago" passed
+into the Jardine vocabulary.
+
+In looking back, I think I can safely say that if Bee had known what
+would happen at that house-party to shock her English friends, she
+would have preferred to discharge her obligations to them by a nice
+little Sunday afternoon at Coney Island or an evening in Chinatown.
+But fortunately the English are a sensible race, and Sir Wemyss and his
+bride, perhaps because of the reasonable way the duchess came around
+when she found her daughter bent upon marrying Sir Wemyss, were so
+good-humoured and so plainly determined to see naught but good in
+America and naught but fun in Americans that they took everything in
+good part.
+
+Aubrey, Jimmie, and Sir Wemyss got on capitally from the start, for
+before they came Aubrey said:
+
+"What shall I say to them at first--when they come aboard of us, and
+before I have got my sea legs on?"
+
+"Why," said Jimmie, "that's dead easy.  Say to Lady Mary, 'Let my wife
+give you some tea,' and to Sir Wemyss say, 'Old man, how would a
+whiskey and soda go?' and there you are right off the bat."
+
+Aubrey said precisely these words, with the most satisfactory result,
+for over her third cup of tea I felt very friendly with the beautiful
+English woman, and after four whiskies the men were almost sociable.
+
+To our delight, Sir Wemyss was enchanted with Peach Orchard.  He
+visited the uttermost corners of it.  He was charmed with the cows,
+admired their breed, almost raved over Jack, the bulldog, whose
+pedigree was nearly as long as that of Lady Mary, who was the daughter
+of a hundred earls.  He gave me many hints about my fine poultry, and
+wrote that first night for a pair of his very finest buff cochins to be
+sent over from his place in England, which he had just inherited from
+his uncle.  He showed us where the apple-trees needed pruning, and was
+so interested in my attempts at an old-fashioned garden, which Bee had
+hidden behind a tall hedge, that he went to fetch Lady Mary to look at
+it, and they both volunteered to send me some plants and shrubs from
+England, which they declared I needed to complete it.
+
+Bee's face was a study during those few hours.  She had honestly tried
+to have everything as English as possible for them, and had trained my
+poor servants almost to death, with instructions as to what they were
+to do during this week.  They were outwardly obedient, but inwardly
+disrespectful, as I overheard Norah, the housemaid, say to the cook:
+
+"Katie, oh, Katie!  We're wor-rkin' for the Four Hundhred now!"
+
+"How do you know we ar-re?" asked Katie.
+
+"The ladies all shtrip fur dinner!"
+
+Jimmie simply shrieked when I told him, but Bee failed to see anything
+in it but an excellent reason why Norah should be discharged.  Poor Bee!
+
+She had given me specific directions about serving the meals, and had
+made me lay in a supply of jam for breakfast, and had implored me to
+serve cold meats and joints and things as the English do, and to please
+her I had promised.  But that first night at dinner Lady Mary turned to
+me and said, with a sweetness and grace not to be reproduced:
+
+"Mrs. Jardine, I have come over here to live among you and to be as
+little unlike you Americans as possible.  I cannot forget that it was
+the American dollar that made it possible for Wemyss to gain poor dear
+mamma's consent to our marriage, and I am correspondingly grateful.
+Now, won't you do me a favour?  Won't you please leave off doing
+anything for us in the English manner, because of your desire to please
+us, and mayn't I see in your house just how Americans live.
+Particularly your breakfasts.  I have heard that they were so
+jolly--not a bit like ours, and I am keen to taste your hot breads!
+Fancy!  I never saw any in my life."
+
+I fairly gasped with delight, and as for the maids, I was afraid they
+were going to kiss Lady Mary.  It removed an awful strain.
+
+"Certainly," I beamed.  "I will do anything I can for you."
+
+"If she does," declared Jimmie, "there won't be a queer American thing
+for you to learn after you leave Peach Orchard.  You'll have seen 'em
+all."
+
+"That is what I should like," said Lady Mary, in her deep, beautiful
+voice.  "And Wemyss would, too."
+
+Sir Wemyss, who spoke but seldom, here removed his cigar, for we had
+gone into the billiard-room after dinner, and said:
+
+"Jardine, you don't know how a little place like this appeals to me.
+Now our places in England are all so large that they take an army of
+servants to run them, and the gardening and all that are done by one's
+men.  But here with only yourselves you can do so much.  You can feed
+your own chickens, you can prune your own trees, you can do such a lot
+yourselves.  I should think it would be great fun."
+
+We were much flattered by this view of it, and Mrs. Jimmie and Bee were
+plainly impressed.
+
+"My sister is very fond of her life here," declared Bee.  "I found
+Peach Orchard a perfect pastoral when I first came."
+
+Jimmie had been smoking thoughtfully, with a frown of perplexity on his
+brow.  Suddenly he spoke.
+
+"I think Sir Wemyss is right," he answered.  "Now, why not all of us
+take a hand at farming, so to speak, while we are here?  I never have,
+but I know I could.  Anyhow I mean to try.  To-morrow, let's go at it
+and prune the trees."
+
+"It is not the proper season to prune trees," observed Sir Wemyss.
+"That should be done in the early spring, before the sap begins to run."
+
+Jimmie looked disappointed.
+
+"Those apple-trees are no good," said the Angel, with tact, "so it
+couldn't possibly hurt to prune them or cut them down if you want to.
+They are a perfect eyesore to me the way they are."
+
+To my surprise, both Jimmie and Sir Wemyss looked pleased.  It was so
+palpably the wrong thing to do that I should have supposed as good a
+husbandman as Sir Wemyss would refuse.  But the joy of doing evidently
+led him to accept the Angel's tactful permission to ruin our
+apple-trees, if by so doing he could interest our guests.
+
+"The very thing!" said Sir Wemyss, with the nearest approach to
+enthusiasm I ever had seen in him.  "Let's prune the trees by all
+means."
+
+"How charming!" said Bee.  "Isn't it delightful to be your own
+gardener!  You have no idea how domestic my sister is, Lady Mary.  She
+superintends her house quite like an Englishwoman.  Did you know that
+we make all our own butter here at Peach Orchard, Sir Wemyss?  And I
+verily believe that Faith knows every chicken on the place by name.
+She is really at her best on a farm."
+
+Jimmie's cigar blinked as if he had winked with it.  Mrs. Jimmie almost
+permitted herself a wry face at the idea of turning her one week with
+the Lombards to such poor account, and at first I feared that this plan
+would quite spoil her pleasure, to say nothing of Bee's.  But if you
+have noticed, the hostess has very little to do with a modern
+house-party, except to get her people together.  After that, they
+manage things to suit themselves.
+
+At any rate, it occurred that way at my house-party.  I had little to
+do except to trot uncomplainingly in the rear of the procession, for
+when once Lady Mary made farming fashionable by her personal interest,
+Bee, who always out-Herods Herod, became so bucolic that she nearly
+drove the hens off their nests in order to hatch the eggs personally.
+
+On the second day from the date of his letter, Billy arrived.  Bee and
+I went to meet him.  The train did not stop at Clovertown, so we had to
+drive about ten miles.  I shall never forget that child's face as he
+saw his mother.  It twitched with feeling, but he felt himself too
+great a boy to cry--especially over joy.  _I_ cried heartily.  I always
+do!  And Billy comforted me in his sweet, babyish fashion that I
+remembered he used when he was in kilts.
+
+Billy became friends with old Amos that first evening, and that
+sufficed, for Amos had enriched my own childhood, and I knew that
+nothing which could amuse or instruct would be omitted.
+
+Billy felt that he and Jimmie, Aubrey, Captain Featherstone, and Sir
+Wemyss constituted the men of the household.  When I asked him why he
+did not include Mr. Beguelin, he put his hands behind him, spread his
+short legs apart, and said:
+
+"Well, you see, Miss Tats, Mr. Beguelin has just been married, and
+bridegrooms don't count."
+
+Things went smoothly enough that first day while my people were
+becoming acquainted.  Then it was Jimmie, dear blessed old, maladroit,
+hot-tempered Jimmie, always so completely at home in a business deal,
+and always so pathetically awkward and so confidently bungling in
+domestic crises, who supplied us with sufficient material for a book on
+"How Not to Prune Trees Properly."
+
+We all went out to the apple-trees early in the morning.  As usual, Sir
+Wemyss was dressed for the part.  Why is it, I wonder, that the British
+always find themselves dressed for the occasion?  I believe, if an
+Englishman were wrecked in mid-ocean, with only a hat-box for baggage,
+that out of that box he could produce bathing-trunks in which to drown
+properly.
+
+The Angel was frankly and simply disreputable, his idea of being
+properly clad for farm-work being to be ragged wherever possible and
+faded all over.  Jimmie, however, wore his ordinary business clothes,
+patent leather shoes, and a derby hat.  And as events transpired, I was
+glad of it.  I love to think of Jimmie pruning trees in patent leathers
+and a derby.
+
+Being, as I say, confident, Jimmie, who never had seen a tree pruned,
+waited for no instructions, but sprang nimbly upon a barrel, and,
+standing on his tiptoes, reached up and snipped at the lower branches.
+Sir Wemyss took a ladder and his pruning-knife, and disappeared from
+view into the thickest part of the tree.  But hearing the industry of
+Jimmie's scissors, he parted the branches and called out:
+
+"I say there, old man!  You are cutting off twigs.  These are the
+things which need to go--these suckers.  See?"
+
+"Yes, Jimmie," I said, pleasantly.  "You are not trimming a hedge, you
+know.  You are--"
+
+Alas, that accidents are always my fault!  Jimmie turned to glare at
+me, and the treacherous barrel-head gave way, letting him down most
+ungently into its middle, and rasping his shins in the descent in a
+manner which must have been particularly trying to one of delicate
+sensibilities.
+
+I sank down suddenly in gasps of unregenerate laughter, for the
+barrel-head was a tight fit, and as Jimmie endeavoured to climb out,
+the barrel climbed too, giving him a strange hoop-skirt effect, which
+went but sadly with the derby hat.
+
+Jimmie grinned sheepishly as the Angel extricated him, and placed a
+strong board on the barrel for him to stand upon in safety.
+
+Then Jimmie decided to saw a dead limb off, and leave the pruning to
+Sir Wemyss.  So he took the saw and went valiantly to work, but it was
+tiresome, so he leaned his weight against the limb and industriously
+sawed his prop off, which sent him flying almost into Lady Mary's lap.
+He saved himself by his nimbleness, but this time Jimmie was
+mad--uncompromisingly mad.
+
+He said little, however, but seated himself in the cooling and tranquil
+vicinity of his Madonna-faced wife, while watching the Angel and Sir
+Wemyss reduce the refractory tree to symmetry and healthfulness without
+effort and without disaster.
+
+His failure and particularly Bee's and my ghoulish laughter had nettled
+him, however, and he was determined to recover himself as well as
+regain his place in our esteem.
+
+All day he wandered around, seeking a suitable opportunity, all the
+while watching me craftily to see if I suspected his design.  But I
+gave no sign, which plainly lightened the burden he was carrying.
+
+Lady Mary trained my crimson rambler rose over the dining-room window
+and cut flowers for all the vases.  This was ordinarily my work, and I
+loved it, but it gave her pleasure, and above all it gave her a home
+pleasure which she had missed.  I asked her if she would train the
+roses every day while she was with us, taking the work off my hands.
+She coloured softly as she gladly consented, and went prettily and
+importantly to work.
+
+Artie Beg, having just come home from a prolonged honeymoon, was
+frequently obliged to go into town for a few hours' conference with his
+partner, and Cary, from being one of the most energetic of guests, had
+developed a tendency to talk of nothing in the world except her
+husband, and, when no one would listen to her, of sitting apart with
+her hands folded in her lap and a dreamy look in her eyes as if only
+her body were present at my house-party.  Her mind was plainly in Wall
+Street.
+
+I may not be believed, but Christianity and the love of God were
+working in my heart when the next afternoon I asked Jimmie's help in a
+piece of work which it did not seem possible for him to fail in.
+
+The side porch has a great curving, bulging iron trellis for the
+honeysuckle, and I keep the vines so thinned out that I can have boxes
+of flowers growing on the porch railing, which only need what sunlight
+comes filtering through the honeysuckle.  By cutting the blossoms every
+day I obtain the result I wish, and on this occasion I had cut all I
+could reach, and I asked Jimmie to cut those which were beyond me.
+
+These boxes at the bottom were only as wide as the porch railing, but
+flared out on both sides in order to hold more earth, and all were
+painted green.  Now in that particular box, shaded by the honeysuckle,
+I had, with infinite care, coaxed sun-loving dwarf nasturtiums to grow,
+because their gorgeous colouring looked so well next to the box which
+held my ferns.
+
+I had planted the nasturtiums in early spring in the box in the
+greenhouse, shading the colours from pale yellow at each end to a
+glorious orange and crimson in the middle.  Each plant was perfect of
+its kind and growing and blooming riotously before I took the box,
+which was some fourteen feet long, and with my own hands nailed it to
+the porch railing, and its ends to two pillars.
+
+It never occurred to me that Jimmie would be foolish enough to try to
+_stand_ on the edge of that box, for of course, while I am no
+carpenter, I drove my nails to cope with wind-storms, not a great man,
+who--oh, well!  I might have known that Jimmie would do something.
+
+He could have reached all I wanted from the porch, but of course,
+though I only stepped through the French window to lay my flowers down,
+in that instant Jimmie had sprung upon that slanting edge of my poor,
+frail little box, and in that instant the mischief was done.  The box
+tilted and flung Jimmie forward against the curving trellis, which
+began to creak and groan alarmingly.  All my precious nasturtiums were
+pitched headlong into the flower-beds below, and for once Jimmie
+shrieked my name in accents of the acutest entreaty.
+
+"Faith!" he shouted, below his breath.  "Faith, for God's sake run here
+and catch me!  This damned thing is giving way.  Haul me back.  Oh, my
+coat won't save me!  Leggo my coat-tails.  Put your arms around my
+waist.  Stop laughing!  Put--your--arms--around my waist--I say--and
+haul me back!  Brace your feet and pull!"
+
+I did as he desired, bracing my feet and dragging him back to safety by
+his leather belt.
+
+We were detected, however, by Bee and Captain Featherstone, who came
+strolling gracefully around the corner of the house just as Jimmie's
+convulsed clutch loosened from the trellis and set all the vines to
+dancing and trembling, as if a wind-storm had passed over them.
+
+There was no need of their asking what had happened.  The ruin spoke
+for itself.  Captain Featherstone gallantly helped me to pick up and
+replant my poor nasturtiums, but they had been so bruised and their
+feelings so wounded by their undignified tumble that they did nothing
+but sulk all the remainder of the summer, never once blooming out
+handsomely as they should, although I carefully explained to them just
+how it happened.  They seemed to think that it was my fault, and they
+never forgave me.  Sometimes flowers are as unreasonable as people.
+
+Three days after Billy's arrival, when he had thoroughly mastered all
+the details of Peach Orchard and knew personally all the cows, the
+horses, the white bulldog, the cats, the chickens, the little calves,
+and the reachable branches of every tree on the place, old Amos came in
+to speak to me.
+
+He stood before me, bowing, with his hat in his hand:
+
+"Well'm, Miss Faith honey, I reckon de time's about ripe foh de goats.
+Dat boy's investigated every nook an' cornder ob de place, an' ef you
+tink bes' I'll go after de goats dis afternoon."
+
+"Very well, Amos," I said.  "We are all going to Philadelphia to-day to
+attend the launching of Mr. Beguelin's yacht, and we are going to take
+Billy.  You can bring the goats up while we are away, and tomorrow
+morning we can give them to him."
+
+"Yas'm," said Amos, bowing.  "I'll have 'em hyah when y'all gets back."
+
+I will say nothing of the ceremony of the launching of the yacht,
+although, from Cary's uplifted face, you would have thought it was the
+christening of a first-born child.  Jimmie says we needn't say
+anything.  We were worse!
+
+Billy was wildly excited over the breaking of the bottle of champagne,
+and asked a thousand questions about it.
+
+The next morning we all went out to the barn to see him receive his
+goats.  His face fairly beamed when he saw them.  He clapped his hands.
+
+"Oh, Uncle Aubrey!  Miss Tats!  Are they for me?"
+
+Then he flung his arms around his mother's neck--Bee's neck, mind
+you!--and cried out:
+
+"Oh, mother, I do think I have the kindest relatives in all the world!
+What other little boys' relatives would think of the kindness of giving
+them goats?"
+
+"That's right, my boy," said Captain Featherstone, looking with open
+admiration at Bee's motherly attitude, on her knees beside her boy and
+his arms around her neck, "always be grateful.  It's a rare virtue
+these days."
+
+Jimmie, however, who always spoils things, winked at Aubrey.  But
+Billy's next remark threw us all into fits of laughter.
+
+"Oh, Uncle Aubrey, can't we have a ceremony of launching the goats, and
+mayn't I break a bottle of champagne over their horns?"
+
+Jimmie fairly yelled.  Billy looked distressed.
+
+"Their horns are very strong!" he urged.  "I don't believe it would
+hurt them one bit.  And you might give me one of those little bottles I
+saw Mr. Jimmie open--you remember the little one you had after the two
+big ones, don't you, Mr. Jimmie?"
+
+"Oh, yes, Billy," I said.  "Mr. Jimmie remembers.  (You'd be ashamed
+not to, wouldn't you, Jimmie?)"
+
+"You think you're funny," growled Jimmie, witheringly, as Sir Wemyss
+and Captain Featherstone broke out afresh, and even Artie Beg left off
+looking at Cary long enough to smile at Jimmie's scarlet face and Mrs.
+Jimmie's anxious one.  She moved quietly over to where Jimmie was
+standing with his hands in his pockets, and slipped her arm through
+his.  She did not know quite what it was all about, but she felt that
+they were laughing at her Jimmie, and, as usual, she looked
+reproachfully at me.
+
+Billy's plaintive voice recalled us.
+
+"Yes, dearie," I hastened to say.  "You may have a small bottle of
+champagne--or perhaps Apollinaris water would be better, it sparkles
+just the same, and if it flew in the goats' eyes it wouldn't make them
+smart, and the champagne would."
+
+Billy beamingly acquiesced.
+
+"Now I must just think up some good names for them," he said, with an
+air of importance, "and perhaps I'll have to ask Uncle Aubrey and Mr.
+Jimmie to help me.  It's awful hard to think up suitable names for
+goats."
+
+"All right, old man," said Aubrey.  "Come along.  We'll think 'em up
+now, and have the launching this afternoon, and invite some people to
+the ceremony."
+
+So he and Billy and Jimmie took leave of us, and strolled away
+together, Billy with his hands in his trousers' pockets and striving to
+take just as long steps as they did.  He would have given his kingdom
+for a pipe!
+
+We got up quite a little party, and worked very hard over it.  Bee and
+Captain Featherstone delivered the invitations, and people thought it
+was a most delicious joke, and came in a mood of the utmost hilarity.
+At first Billy wanted to break the bottle himself, but upon being told
+that girls always did it, he invited a bewitching little maid of seven,
+Kathleen Van Osdel, to christen them, while Billy valiantly sat in the
+goat-carriage, waiting for Aubrey and Amos to let go of the goats'
+horns.
+
+The names were kept a profound secret, but Jimmie had a fashion of
+going purple in the face, and pretending he was only going to sneeze.
+He walked around among the guests trying to appear unconcerned--which
+made me watch him closely.
+
+He had appointed himself master of ceremonies.  He it was who put the
+Apollinaris bottle into Kathleen's hands, and held her in his arms
+while she leaned down and broke the bottle over the horns of the
+gentler goat.
+
+Then her childish treble shrilled out:
+
+"I christen thee, Roosevelt and Congress!" she cried out.
+
+"Let go!" shouted Billy, standing up in the goat carriage, his cheeks
+like scarlet flowers.
+
+Amos and Aubrey released their hold, Kathleen screamed with excitement,
+and away bounded the goats down the driveway, with Sir Wemyss after
+them on horseback, for fear anything might happen.
+
+But nothing did happen, and in ten minutes back they came to receive
+congratulations from everybody.
+
+"Are they all right, Billy?" I cried.
+
+"Yes, Miss Tats.  Congress is just as gentle as can be when you let him
+alone.  They go splendidly, except when Roosevelt butts.  You know he
+is always butting into Congress and making trouble."
+
+At that I understood, for Jimmie deliberately rolled on the grass.
+
+"I noticed that peculiarity of the goats," he gasped, when he could
+speak, "but if I had trained that child a month, he couldn't have put
+it better.  It's--it's simply too good to be true!"
+
+Then he went away to explain the joke to Lady Mary.
+
+I think Bee enjoyed the house-party in spite of its gardening flavour,
+for we entertained quite a little.  At another time I gave a musicale,
+and had people out from town; we were invited about while automobiles
+snorted and chunked into Peach Orchard at all hours of the day to the
+everlasting terror of the cats, who streaked by us and flashed up trees
+in simple lines of long gray fur.
+
+It was strange how the cat family resembled human beings, for it was
+the young cats, Puffy and Pinkie and Fitz and Corbett, who got used to
+the automobiles first, and ceased to run at their approach.  Youth is
+ever progressive and adaptable, while poor old Mitnick crouched in the
+fork of a high pine, and glared with her yellow eyes and waved her
+great tail in furious revolt at those puffing, snorting monsters which
+she never could abide anyway,--and she was glad she couldn't.
+
+We had no automobile, but the sorrels were there in the height of their
+glory and slimness, and we still basked in the refulgence of the
+coachman and footman of Bee's own selection, so her soul was at peace.
+
+Only one thing happened to mar our pleasure.  Jimmie fell ill.
+
+Mrs. Jimmie hunted me up one blistering morning, and said, anxiously:
+
+"Faith, I am very much worried about Jimmie.  He is lying down."
+
+"Well, what of it?" I said, with unintentioned brutality.  "Does he
+always sit up that you seem so surprised?"
+
+She looked at me reproachfully.
+
+"He always sits up when he is well," she said, gently.
+
+"Is he ill?" I exclaimed, dropping my gardening shears and hastily
+wiping my hands on my apron.  "Can I do anything for him?  Does he need
+a doctor?  I'll go right up."
+
+Mrs. Jimmie coloured all over her soft creamy face.  She laid her hand
+on my arm.
+
+"Don't be offended, will you, dear?" she begged, "but--Jimmie--you know
+how unreasonable sick men are--"
+
+She paused helplessly.
+
+I waited.
+
+"Well, out with it!  What does he want?"
+
+"He said--I didn't realize how difficult it would be to tell you when
+he said it--but he said--"
+
+Again she stopped.
+
+"I shall evidently have to go and ask him what he wants," I said,
+moving toward the house.
+
+"No, no, dear!  I will tell you!  Don't go near him!" pleaded Mrs.
+Jimmie.  "That is just what he doesn't want.  He said on no account
+were you to come near him."
+
+She paused with a gasp.  Evidently she expected me to burst into tears.
+
+"The brute!" I remarked, pleasantly.  "I hope he is suffering!"
+
+Mrs. Jimmie's beautiful face became instantly grave.
+
+"He is suffering, Faith," she said, quietly.
+
+"Then why won't he see me?  Perhaps I could do something.  Aubrey
+always lets me try.  Has he a headache?"
+
+"He has a splitting headache, he says, and a high fever, and his collar
+hurts him."
+
+"His collar hurts him!  Then why doesn't he take it off?"
+
+"That's just it.  He won't.  He says he always wears it and it never
+hurt him before, and he'll be--well, he says he won't take it off for
+anybody."
+
+I turned away and bit my lip.
+
+Poor old sick, obstinate Jimmie!  In my mind's eye I could just see him
+lying there with all his hot clothes on and swearing he would not take
+them off and be made comfortable.
+
+But I could do nothing.  He would see none of us.  I sent tea and
+lemonade and ice and hot-water bags and every conceivable remedy to his
+rooms, but with no effect.  Nor would he hear of our calling a doctor.
+
+About four o'clock Mrs. Jimmie left him for a few moments, and this was
+my chance.
+
+I slipped into the room.  He was lying on the couch with his feet in
+patent leather shoes,--even his coat and waistcoat on, and a high,
+tight collar which rasped his ears.
+
+He grinned sheepishly when he saw me.
+
+"You told me to keep out, I know, but I never do as I'm told, so I came
+anyhow."
+
+"I know that," growled Jimmie.
+
+"Your head's as hot as fire," I said.  "And those shoes are drawing
+like a mustard plaster."
+
+"I don't care.  I won't take 'em off," said Jimmie, savagely, raising
+himself on his elbow.
+
+I turned on him.
+
+"You always were a fool, Jimmie," I said.  "You don't have to take them
+off if you don't want to."  (He sank back with a groan of pain.)  "But
+I'm going to do it, and if you kick while your foot is in my lap you'll
+hurt me."
+
+Before he could wink I had pulled off those abominable things, and
+slipped his narrow silk-stockinged feet into cool slippers.  He
+couldn't restrain a sigh of comfort.  I went in the closet to put his
+shoes on their trees, and brought out a white linen coat.
+
+"Sit up and put this on," I commanded.
+
+"I will not!" he answered, flatly.
+
+I looked around and there stood Mrs. Jimmie.  If she had stayed away
+another ten minutes, I would have got him comfortable.  But in spite of
+our combined efforts he insisted upon lying there as he was.
+
+I went out and telephoned for the doctor, and when he came it pleased
+Jimmie no end that he didn't say a word about taking off those hot
+clothes.
+
+"You see," he said to his wife, "that doctor knows his business.  He
+doesn't devil me the way you women do."
+
+Mrs. Jimmie was wise enough to make no reply.
+
+"He said if you would go to sleep for an hour you would feel better,"
+she said.  "So put on this thin coat, then I'll close the blinds and go
+out."
+
+Jimmie looked at her quizzically.  Then he slowly sat up and changed
+his coat without a word.
+
+When he wakened his headache was gone.  But he was unable to come down
+to dinner, and we saw him no more that day.
+
+As he went to bed that night he said:
+
+"I suppose you and Faith chuckled over getting your own way with my
+shoes and coat.  But I want you to tell Faith that I stuck it out on
+the collar and that I only took it off when I went to bed!"
+
+He was all right the next day, so we were spared the grief of being
+obliged to bury him in that collar.
+
+So it came to be the last day of the Lombards' stay.
+
+We had all grown exceedingly fond of the dear English people who had
+come so sweetly into the midst of an American home and adapted
+themselves to our way of living with such easy grace.  No one would
+have believed, to see Lady Mary in her simple garden hat and cotton
+gown, that she was a court beauty, over whose hand royalty had often
+bent in gracious admiration.  But it was true.
+
+Nor was she deficient in a sense of humour, for she openly doted on
+Jimmie, and listened intently for his jokes, with the laudable
+intention of seeing them before they were explained to her, if she
+could.
+
+His absurd misadventures, however, came well within her ken, and this
+last one so tickled her fancy that--I blush to say it, but it is
+true--our imported Guernsey cow is responsible for Jimmie's invitation
+to Combe Abbey to visit the Duchess of Strowther, when Lady Mary goes
+home to her mother next May.
+
+This is how it happened.
+
+We were all out on the tennis-court one afternoon, when our attention
+was attracted by the strange antics of the Guernsey.  She was generally
+quite shy and would allow no one to whom she was not accustomed to come
+near her.  But on this occasion she lurched up near where we were
+standing, and crossed her forefeet and leered at us in such a way that
+we women instinctively moved backward and put the men between us and
+her.
+
+We all stared at her, and she stared back and switched her long tail
+and hung her tongue out and rolled from side to side, until Jimmie said:
+
+"I'm blessed if the old girl doesn't look drunk!"
+
+Just then old Amos ambled up, his fat sides shaking.
+
+"Dat's jest what!" he exclaimed.  "You sho'ly am a jedge ob jags,
+Mistah Jimmie, tah be able tah tell 'em in man er beas'!  Dat cow's
+drunk.  Dat's what she is.  Jest plain drunk an' disorderly.  She broke
+her rope dis mornin' en got at de apples en filled hersif full ob dem.
+And apples always mek a cow drunk!"
+
+"I never heard of such a thing," said Captain Featherstone.
+
+Amos scratched his head.
+
+"Well, Mars Captain, I reckon dere's a heap o' tings about a farm dat
+army ossifers never hearn tell of--meaning no onrespect to dere book
+larnin'.  But jes' de same, dat air Guernsey am drunk."
+
+We all looked at her with interest.
+
+"But what will she do?" I said.  "How does being drunk affect a cow?"
+
+"Jes' same as er man, Miss Faith, honey.  Jes' look at her!  She used
+to be de shyest, mos' ladylake cow awn de place.  She always seemed to
+'member dat she'd had a calf en was a lady ob quality.  Now look at
+her!  She don' keer!  She'd jes' as soon lean her head on de Boss's
+shoulder en ax him fer a drink er de loan ob his cee-gyar.  She's done
+forgot dat she's a mudder.  She feels lake she don' know which is de
+odder side ob de street en she don' want to be tol'!  Dat's what drink
+does for man or beas'."
+
+"But will it hurt her milk?" I said, soberly, for the rest were
+screaming at the imbecile expression of the Guernsey while Amos thus
+diagnosed her case.
+
+"No'm, no'm.  Leastways hit won't hurt huh none.  It'll dry her up,
+dough.  Such a jag as dat Guernsey's got will dry up her milk for two
+weeks er mo'.  En I wouldn't keer to be de one ter milk huh, neider!"
+
+Here was Jimmie's opportunity.
+
+"Nonsense!" he said.  "I'll milk her!  I'm not afraid of what a drunken
+cow will do.  Let me know, Amos, when you want her milked."
+
+"All right, Mistah Jimmie.  I sho will let you know, yas, sir.  Now
+den, Missus fool cow!  Ef you can leab off chattin' wid de quality long
+enough to go teh yo' stall, I'll show you de way."
+
+I repeat--the Guernsey used to be our best-behaved, most intelligent
+and ladylike cow, but when Amos endeavoured to lead her away, she
+calmly sank down just where she was, and went to sleep.
+
+This was too much for Amos.  Fun was fun, to be sure, and he seemed
+glad we were pleased by the Guernsey's antics, but his wrath at a cow's
+taking the tennis-court for her afternoon nap upset his ideas of
+propriety.
+
+"Doesn't she remind you for all the world," cried Jimmie, with tears in
+his eyes, "of a man who sinks to sleep with his arm affectionately
+around a lamp-post?  Her feet are in an attitude that a painter would
+call 'one of unstudied grace!'"
+
+But Amos, in a fury, pushed, pulled, slapped, and shoved her into a
+sitting posture, and, by dint of leaning upon each other as if both
+were under the weather, he finally got her started toward the barn,
+she, every once in awhile, pausing to lift a fore foot hilariously
+before planting it on her next uncertain step.
+
+Several hours later I saw Jimmie, with a shining new milk-pail on his
+arm, followed by Amos with the milking-stool in his hand and his tongue
+in his cheek, go toward the Guernsey's stall.
+
+We all looked expectantly at each other, then rose, as if by common
+consent, and followed.
+
+Lady Mary tucked her arm under Mrs. Jimmie's, and gurgled deliciously.
+
+"Oh, dear Mrs. Jimmie!  Is your husband always as amusing as he has
+been here at Peach Orchard?  If he is, I am sure mamma would just
+delight in him--only things aren't always happening at Combe Abbey to
+show him off as they are at Mrs. Jardine's."
+
+Mrs. Jimmie looked dubious at the first part of this remark, flushed
+with pleasure at the middle of it, and looked reproachfully at me at
+the last.
+
+Why is everything always my fault, I wonder?
+
+"Well, I don't know," she said, slowly, "but it does seem as if Jimmie
+always gets into more troub--I mean, has more adventures when he and
+Faith are together than when he and I are alone.  Oh, oh!  What can be
+the matter with that cow!  Oh, I wonder if she has killed my husband!"
+
+We all looked just in time to see the Guernsey gallop madly across the
+garden, plough her way through the sweet corn, and disappear gaily over
+the fence, heading for the trolley-tracks, with Amos a close second as
+she took the hurdle.
+
+Bee's English coachman, who took great pride in the kitchen-garden,
+hastily followed to see what damage she had done, but at Mrs. Jimmie's
+agonized entreaty to know what had become of Jimmie, I called him, and
+he came, respectfully touching his forelock in a way which Jimmie
+always said "was worth the price of admission."
+
+"I think she has about done for the Country Gentleman, ma'am.  She has
+trampled it so it will never be any good."
+
+Mrs. Jimmie turned white, and leaned gaspingly on Lady Mary.
+
+"Trampled him!" she cried.  "Oh, come!  Come quickly, and see if she
+has killed him!"
+
+"My dear!" I cried, almost hysterical over her mistake.  "The Country
+Gentleman is a kind of sweet corn--not Jimmie!  See, there he is now.
+Look, dearest!"
+
+Sure enough, there came Jimmie, a trifle sheepish, but defiant.  His
+derby hat was without a brim, the milk-pail was jammed together like a
+folding lunch-box, and had a little foam on the outside, as the sole
+product of his milking prowess.
+
+We asked no questions, but our eager faces demanded an explanation.
+
+He gave it,--terse as was his wont.
+
+"Well, I'll bet that damned cow never switches her tail in anybody's
+face again!"
+
+We needed no further description of what had happened.  The picture was
+complete.
+
+Strange to say, Lady Mary seemed to comprehend better than any of us.
+She gurgled with laughter the whole evening, and lavished attentions
+upon Jimmie so flatteringly that he ceased to look furtively at me and
+became quite cocky before the evening was over, pretending that he had
+done all these things to help me entertain my guests.
+
+As we went up-stairs that night, Mrs. Jimmie clutched my arm, and, with
+eyes as big as stars, said, in a tense whisper:
+
+"My dear, we are invited to Combe Abbey!  Think of it!  To visit the
+Duchess of Strowther!  Lady Mary is going to write to her mother
+immediately!"
+
+If it had been anybody except dear Mrs. Jimmie, I should have said:
+
+"Is she going to invite the cow, too?"
+
+But as it was, I squeezed back, and said, earnestly:
+
+"I am so glad, dear Mrs. Jimmie!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+ON THE GENTLE ART OF WASTING OTHER PEOPLE'S TIME
+
+On the last day of the house-party we decided to hold a family
+gathering in the evening, to which each guest must bring a written
+sketch of some member of the household.  It was to be a very short
+sketch, not to consume over ten minutes in the reading, and no one was
+to get angry, and no one was to get his feelings hurt.
+
+Aubrey had to go into New York to attend a dress rehearsal of his new
+play, but he promised to write something on the train, and have it
+ready.  His absence left me at once to play hostess and to receive the
+queer, curious, and inconsequent persons who flock to the door of the
+successful playwright, with every wish from obtaining his autograph to
+an offer to stage his plays.
+
+My time was all taken up until eleven o'clock, in ordering and setting
+the servants at work, righting their wrongs, and pottering around among
+my large family.  At three I had an engagement.  This left me but a
+short time in which to write my sketch.  I begged Bee to help me out,
+but never yet have I succeeded in impressing Bee with any respect for
+my working hours.  For this reason I laid down the law with open energy
+to Billy, hoping that Bee would see that I meant her.
+
+I began the campaign at breakfast.  Bee and Billy and I were alone.
+
+"At eleven o'clock I am going to begin to write," I announced, firmly,
+"and, Billy, I want you distinctly to understand that you are not to
+run your engine in my hall.  Do you hear?"
+
+"Um--huh," said Billy, smiling at me like a cherub.
+
+Bee leaned over and wiped the butter off Billy's chin.
+
+"Before I go to town to-day I want to talk over that blue silk with
+you," she said.  "I don't know how much to get, and Eugenie is so
+extravagant unless I get the stuff and tell her I got all there was in
+the piece.  Then she makes it do.  Would you have it made up with lace?"
+
+"Now, look here, Bee," I said, "I am not going to get my head all
+muddled with dressmaking before I begin to write.  I have all my ideas
+ready to write that article for to-night.  I am going to tell about Mr.
+and Mrs. Jimmie at Canterbury.  Don't you remember what happened?  You
+know if you side-track me on clothes I simply cannot do a thing."
+
+"I know," said Bee, placidly.  "No, Billy, not another lump of sugar.
+Be quiet while mamma talks to Tattah.  I know, but it seems to me you
+might have selected another day to write.  You know I wanted to consult
+you about the dinner Thursday."
+
+"I didn't select the day.  The day selected me."
+
+"Why didn't you write yesterday?"
+
+"I didn't have any time."
+
+"Why don't you wait until afternoon?"
+
+"You know they are to be read tonight."
+
+"Oh, very well, go ahead, and I won't bother you.  I dare say the
+dinner will be all right.  But if you would just tell me which to use,
+lace or chiffon with the blue?"
+
+"Lace," I said, in desperation.
+
+Bee half-way closed her eyes and took Billy's hand out of the
+cream-pitcher.
+
+"I think I'll use chiffon," she said.
+
+The only use my advice is to Bee is to fasten her on to the opposite
+thing.  She says I help her to decide because I am always wrong.
+
+"Now will you keep Billy away and excuse me to all visitors, and don't
+come near my door for three hours and send my luncheon up at one
+o'clock, and _don't send after the tray_!  Leave it there until I have
+finished writing."
+
+"It is so untidy," murmured Bee.
+
+"Well, who will see it?"
+
+I am one of those who cleanse the outside of the desk and the bureau.
+
+"Now, Billy, my precious, if you will keep away from Tattah all the
+morning, I will give you some candy directly after dinner.  You will
+find it on the sconce just where I always put it," I said.
+
+The sconce is where Billy and I put things for each other.  He is only
+three and a half--"thrippence, ha'penny," he says if you ask him, but
+beguiling--oh, as beguiling as Cleopatra, or the serpent in the Garden
+of Eden, or--or as his mother!
+
+Billy and I went to look at the sconce on my way up-stairs, and he
+called me back twice, saying, "Tattah, I want to kiss you," which I
+could but feel was something due to the promised candy on the sconce.
+
+I sat down and began to write:
+
+
+_Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie at Canterbury_.
+
+Mrs. Jimmie, having been presented at the Court of St. James, always
+has more to do in London than she can attend to.  As Jimmie hates
+functions with all the hatred of the American business man who looks
+upon gloves as for warmth only, this leaves Jimmie and me to roam
+around London at will.  Mrs. Jimmie loathes the top of a "'bus" and
+absolutely draws the line at "The Cheshire Cheese."  She lunches at
+Scott's and dines at the Savoy, while Jimmie and I are never so happy
+as in the grill-room at the Trocadero or in a hansom, threading the
+mazes of the City, bound for a plate of beefsteak pie at "The Cheshire
+Cheese" or on top of a 'bus on Saturday night, going through the
+Whitechapel region, creepy with horrors of "Jack the Ripper."
+
+"What in all the world is a beefsteak pie?" she asked us, when she
+heard our unctuous exclamations.
+
+"Why, it is a huge meat pie, made out of ham and larks and pigeons and
+beef, with a delicious gravy or sauce and a divine pastry.  And you eat
+it in a little old kitchen with a sanded floor and deal tables, and
+where the bread is cut in chunks and where the steins are so thick that
+it is like drinking your beer over a stone wall, and where Dr. Samuel
+Johnson used to sit so often that the oil from his hair has made a
+lovely dirty spot on the wall, and they have it under glass with a
+tablet to his memory, so that if you like you can go and kneel down and
+worship before it, with your knees grinding into the sand of the
+floor," I said.
+
+"Dear me," said Mrs. Jimmie, faintly.  "Couldn't they have cleaned it
+off?"
+
+
+At this juncture Bee came in with her hat on.  "Excuse me for
+interrupting you," she said, with a far-away look in her eyes.  "But do
+you mind if I copy that pink negligee?  It hangs so much better than
+those I got in Paris.  I won't take a moment.  Just stand up and let me
+see.  You needn't look so despairing, I am not going to stay.  No,
+Billy, you stay there.  Mother will be down directly.  Oh, baby, why
+will you step on poor Tattah's gown?  See, you hurt her.  Didn't I tell
+you to stay with Norah?  Six, eight, ten--don't, Billy.  Don't touch
+any of Tattah's papers.  Twelve--and four times seven--I think thirty
+yards of lace--Billy, take your engine off the piano.  Oh, I forgot to
+tell you that Dick just telephoned, and wants us to make up a party for
+the theatre, with a supper afterward, next Monday.  I telephoned to
+Freddie and asked him, and he is delighted, and so I told Dick that we
+would all come with pleasure.  Now come, Billy, we must not interrupt
+Tattah.  This is one of the days when she must not be disturbed."
+
+She closed the door with the softness one uses in closing the door of a
+death-chamber, in order, I suppose, "not to disturb" me.  I pulled
+myself together, and went on.
+
+
+_Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie at Canterbury_.
+
+"Clean it off?  What sacrilege!  Why, there are persons who would like
+to buy the whole wall, as Taffy tried to buy the wall on which Little
+Billee had drawn Trilby's foot," I exclaimed.
+
+Mrs. Jimmie looked incredulous.  She is so deliciously lacking in a
+sense of humour that in the frivolous society of Jimmie and me she is
+as much out of place as the Venus de Milo would be in vaudeville.
+
+"We had such a delightful day at Stoke Pogis Monday, how would you like
+to spend Sunday at Canterbury?" she said.  "It seems to me that it
+would be a most restful thing to wander through that lovely old
+cathedral on Sunday."
+
+Before I could reply, Jimmie dug his hands down in his pockets, thrust
+his legs out in front of him, dropped his chin on his shirt-bosom and
+chuckled.
+
+"What I like are cheerful excursions," he said.  "On Monday we went to
+Stoke Pogis.  It rained, and we had to wear overshoes, and we carried
+umbrellas.  We lunched at a nasty little inn where we had to eat cold
+ham and cold mutton and cold beef, when we were wet and frozen to start
+with.  What I wanted was a hot Scotch and a hot chop and hot
+potatoes--everything _hot_.  Then--"
+
+"Wait," I cried.  "It was the inn where John Storm and Glory Quayle
+lunched that day when she led him such a dance."
+
+"John Fiddlesticks!" said Jimmie.  "As if that counted against that
+cold lunch!  Then we arranged to go in the wagonette, but you got into
+such a hot argument with me--"
+
+"I thought you said we didn't have anything hot," I murmured.
+
+"Then we missed the wagonette, and spent an hour finding a cab.  Then
+when we got there we were waylaid by an old woman in a little cottage,
+who showed us a register of tourists, and who artfully mentioned the
+sums they had given toward the restoration of Stoke Pogis, and you made
+me give more than the day's excursion cost.  Then we went along a wet,
+bushy lane that muddied my trousers, and when we arrived at Gray's
+grave, you found the solemn yew-tree, and perched yourself on a wet,
+cold gravestone, and read Gray's Elegy aloud, while I held an umbrella
+over your heads and enjoyed myself.  Now you want to put in Sunday at
+Canterbury, where, if it isn't more cheerful, you will probably have to
+bury me."
+
+"Jimmie, you haven't any soul!" I said, in disgust.
+
+Jimmie grunted.
+
+
+A knock on the door.
+
+"Please excuse me for interrupting you," said Mary, "but there are two
+reporters down-stairs, who want to know if they may photograph the
+front of the house for the Sunday _Battle Ax_."
+
+"Yes, I don't care.  Tell them to go ahead."
+
+She shut the door and went away.
+
+
+_Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie at Canterbury_.
+
+"Oh, Jimmie," sighed his wife.
+
+
+Another knock.
+
+"Mary, what _do_ you want?" I said, savagely.
+
+She stuttered.
+
+"And please, Missis, they want to know if you will just come and sit on
+the doorstep a moment with a book in your hand.  I told them Mr.
+Jardine wasn't at home, so they said you would do!"
+
+"No, I won't.  Tell my sister to put on my hat and hold the book in
+front of her face and be photographed for me."
+
+"Very well, Missis."
+
+She went out, and again I numbered the page and essayed to write.  But
+I could not.  I was rapidly becoming mired.  I stonily refused to leave
+my desk, but sat staring at the wall, trying to get the thread of my
+narrative, when--Mary again.
+
+She was in tears.
+
+"I am afraid to speak to you, and I am afraid _not_ to speak to you,"
+she stammered.
+
+"Well, what is it?"
+
+"Indeed, I try, Missis, but I can't seem to help you any.  There are
+two young girls in the drawing-room, who want to know if Mr. Jardine
+will give his autograph to the Highland Alumnae Club.  It has 472
+members.  They sent up their cards."
+
+I simply moaned.
+
+"That will be a whole hour's work!  I can't do it now.  (Mary knows I
+always write Aubrey's autographs for him!)  Tell them to leave the
+cards and call for them to-morrow."
+
+
+_Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie at Canterbury_.
+
+"How in the world, Mrs. Jimmie, did you come to throw yourself away on
+Jimmie?" I said, with an impertinence which was only appreciated by
+Jimmie.
+
+Mrs. Jimmie took me with infinite seriousness, and looked horrified at
+the sacrilege.  She got up and crossed the room and sat down beside
+Jimmie on the sofa, without saying a word.  Her tall, full figure
+towered above the gentlemanly slouch of Jimmie's boyish proportions,
+and her thus silently arraying herself on Jimmie's side as a wordless
+rebuke to my impertinence was so delicious that Jimmie gave me a solemn
+wink, as he said:
+
+"Now she has only voiced the opinion of the world.  Let us face the
+question once for all.  Why did you marry me?"
+
+Mrs. Jimmie coloured all over her creamy pale face.  She looked in
+distress from me to Jimmie, divided between her desire to express in
+one burst of eloquence the fulness of her reasons for marrying the man
+she adored, and her reluctance to display emotion before me.  She took
+everything with such edifying gravity.  It never dawned on her that he
+was teasing her.
+
+"Don't torment her so!" I said.  "Mrs. Jimmie, I admire your taste, but
+I admire Jimmie's more."
+
+"Thank you, dear," she said, seriously, but still with that soft blush
+on her cheeks.  Then she added, quietly, "Jimmie never torments me."
+
+"_Mon Dieu_," I said, under my breath, with a fierce glance at Jimmie.
+But he only shook his head, as one would who had not "fetched it" that
+time, but who meant to keep on trying.
+
+
+Another knock.  Mary again, with the mail.  She was swallowing
+violently, and her eyes were full of tears.  I took up the letters and
+tore them open.
+
+Sixteen requests for autographs, only one enclosing a stamp.  Twelve
+letters from young girls, telling Aubrey their stellar capabilities.
+Four requests for photographs.  Some personal letters, and this choice
+effusion, which I copy _verbatim et spellatim_.
+
+
+"DEAR SIR: Please tell me how you Study human natur do you travle
+extensively through close Social relations or do you Study phenology.
+You illustrate it So accrately that I would be pleased to know your
+method and if you don't think I am too cheeky, would be pleased to know
+your income.  I remain yours with respect."
+
+
+I gave a little shriek of delight, and rushed back to the Jimmies with
+renewed enthusiasm.  This unknown man had inspired me afresh.
+
+
+_Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie at Canterbury_.
+
+But although Jimmie growls, there is no one in the world who is so
+excellent a travelling companion as he, for he is always ready for
+everything.  You cannot suggest any jaunt too wild or too impossible
+for Jimmie not to bend his energies toward making it possible.  The
+chief reason that Mrs. Jimmie likes me so much is because I admire
+Jimmie, and the reason that Jimmie likes me is because I adore Mrs.
+Jimmie.
+
+So I was not at all surprised to find ourselves at Canterbury on
+Saturday afternoon, after a short run from London through one of the
+loveliest counties of England.  Such bewitching shades of green.  Such
+lovely little hills,--friendly, companionable little hills.  I can't
+bear mountains.  It is like trying to be intimate with queens and
+empresses.  They overpower me.
+
+Canterbury was enchanted ground to me.  We found the very old cellar
+over which stood the Canterbury Inn.  I could picture the whole thing
+to myself.  I even reconciled Chaucer's spelling with the quaintness
+and curiousness of the old, old town.
+
+We strolled up to St. Martin's Church, said to be the oldest church in
+England, and wandered around the churchyard, filled with glorious roses
+creeping everywhere over tombs so old that the lettering is illegible.
+When the sun set, we had the most beautiful view of Canterbury to be
+had anywhere, and one of the most beautiful in all England.
+
+We sat down to a cold supper that night in a charming little inn with
+diamond-paned windows.  But as Jimmie loves Paris cooking and would
+almost barter his chances of heaven for a smoking dish of _sole à la
+Normande_ at the Café Marguery, he cast looks of deep aversion at a
+side table loaded with all sorts of cold and jellied meats.  His choice
+of evils finally fell upon chicken, and to the purple-faced waiter with
+blue-white eyes, who asked what part of the fowl he would prefer,
+Jimmie said:
+
+"The second joint."
+
+The waiter frowned and went away.  Presently he came back and asked
+Jimmie over again, and again Jimmie said, "The second joint."
+
+He went away and came back with a fine cut of beef.
+
+"What's this?" said Jimmie.  "I ordered chicken."
+
+"Yes, sir!" said the waiter, mopping his brow, "What part would you
+like, sir?"
+
+"The second joint," said Jimmie, with ominous distinctness.  "That is
+if English chickens _grow_ any."
+
+"Yes, sir, yes, sir," said the poor waiter.
+
+He hurried away, and finally brought up the head waiter.
+
+"What part of the fowl would you like, sir?  This man did not
+understand your order."
+
+Jimmie leaned back in his chair, and looked up at the waiters without
+speaking.
+
+"How many parts are there to a chicken?" said Jimmie.  "As your man
+does not seem to speak English, you name them over, and when you come
+to the one I want, I'll scream."
+
+Both waiters shifted their weight to the other foot and looked
+embarrassed.
+
+"I want the knee of the chicken," said Jimmie.  "From the knee-cap to
+the thigh.  That part which supports the fowl when it walks.  Not the
+breast nor the neck nor the back nor yet the ankle, but the upper, the
+superior part of the leg.  Do you understand?"
+
+"The upper part of the leg?  I beg pardon, sir, but the waiter
+understood that you wanted a cut from the second joint on that table,
+sir."
+
+Jimmie simply looked at him.
+
+"The English speak a dialect somewhat resembling the American language,
+Jimmie," I said, soothingly.
+
+
+A knock at the door, and Bee appeared.
+
+"Should Wives Work?" she said.  "Answer that offhand!  There is a
+reporter down-stairs for the _Sunday Gorgon_, who wants five hundred
+words from you which he is prepared to take down in shorthand.  Should
+Wives Work?"
+
+"Should wives work?" I cried, ferociously.  "Would they if they got a
+chance?  Oh, Bee, for heaven's sake, go down and tell him I'm out.
+Please, Bee."
+
+"No, just give me a few ideas, and I'll go down and enlarge on them,
+and make up your five hundred words.  Your opinion is so valuable.  You
+don't know a single thing about it!"
+
+I got rid of her by some diplomacy, and returned to the Jimmies.
+
+_Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie at Canterbury_.
+
+"Never mind her, dear," said Mrs. Jimmie.  "Think what a beautiful,
+restful day we shall have to-morrow, wandering about Canterbury
+cathedral.  I can't think of a more beautiful way to spend Sunday.
+London is simply dreadful on Sunday."
+
+"London is simply dreadful at any time," said Jimmie.  "Every
+restaurant, even the Savoy, closes at midnight.  I got shut into the
+Criterion the other evening in the grill, and had to come out through
+the hotel, and they unlocked more doors and unclanked more chains than
+I've heard since I was the prisoner of Chillon.  Talk about going wrong
+in London.  You simply couldn't.  Goodness is thrust upon you, if you
+are travelling.  If you are a native and belong to the clubs--that's
+different.  But the way they close things in England at the very time
+of all others that you want them to be open--"
+
+
+Bee entered.
+
+"Excuse me," she said, in a whisper.  Bee thinks if she whispers it is
+not an interruption.  "A committee from the Jewish Hospital would like
+to know if Aubrey will present a set of his books to the Hospital
+Library."
+
+"If he does, that will be sixty dollars that he will have paid out this
+week, for his own books, for the privilege of giving them away.  But as
+this is the last hospital in town that he has _not_ contributed to,
+tell them yes, and then set the dog on them!" I said, savagely.
+
+"You poor thing!" said Bee.  "It's a shame the way people torment you."
+
+Billy crowded past his mother, and climbed into my lap.
+
+"Tell me a story, dear Tattah," said this born wheedler, patting my
+face with his little black paw.
+
+"No, now Billy--" began Bee.
+
+"Let him stay," I cried, casting down my pen.  "It is so seldom that he
+cuddles that I'll sacrifice myself upon the altar of aunthood.  Well,
+once upon a time, Billy, there was a dear little blue hen who stole
+away--sit still now!  You've more legs than a centipede!--who stole
+away every day and went under the barn where it was so cool and shady,
+and laid a lovely little smooth, cream-coloured egg.  Then when she had
+laid it, she was so proud that she could never help coming out and
+cackling at the top of her voice, 'Cut-cut-cut-ka-dah-cut!'  And then
+the lady of the house would run out and say, 'Oh, there's that naughty
+little blue hen cackling over a new-laid egg which I did want so much
+to make an omelette, but I don't know where she has laid it.  The
+naughty little blue hen!'  So the poor lady would be obliged to use the
+red hen's eggs for the omelette, because the little blue hen laid
+_hers_ under the barn.
+
+"Well, after the little blue hen had laid six beautiful cream-coloured
+eggs, she began to sit on them day after day, covering them with her
+feathers, and tucking her lovely little blue wings down around the
+edges of her nest to keep the eggs warm, and day after day she sat and
+dreamed of six darling little yellow, fluffy chickens with brown wings
+and sparkling black eyes and dear little peepy voices, and she was so
+happy in thinking of her little children that she was as patient as
+possible, and never seemed to care that all the other hens and chickens
+were running about in the warm yellow sunshine and snapping up lively
+little shiny bugs with their yellow beaks.
+
+"Well, after awhile, this dear little patient blue hen heard the
+funniest little tapping, tapping, tapping under her wings."  Billy's
+eyes nearly bulged out of his head as he tapped the arm of the chair as
+I did.  "And then she felt the most curious little fluttering under her
+wings--oh, Billy, _what_ do you think this little blue hen felt
+fluttering under her wings?"
+
+"A _omelette_!" said Billy, excitedly.
+
+
+I finished the Jimmies as an anticlimax.
+
+
+_Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie at Canterbury_.
+
+It did not disturb Jimmie the next day to discover that Canterbury
+Cathedral is _closed to visitors on Sunday_.
+
+_We_ saw it on Monday.
+
+
+After such a day it was no surprise to me to have Aubrey come home so
+dead tired that our strenuous evening was given up, and we all went out
+in Cary's new motor-car instead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A LETTER FROM JIMMIE
+
+Jimmie's "bread-and-butter" letter gave me such joy that I copy it
+here, which shows how little I care for the conventions of life,
+inasmuch as I reproduce none of the others.  Lady Mary's, Mrs.
+Jimmie's, Artie Beg's, Cary's, Sir Wemyss's, Captain Featherstone's,
+were all models of propriety, and, except that they are friends of
+mine, I would add, of stupidity.  Bee's--Bee's showed me a dozen ways
+in which I might have improved my hospitality, and hers, at least, does
+not come under the head of the name.  But Jimmie's!  Here it is:
+
+
+"Wretched creature and your wholly irreproachable husband:
+
+"Ordinarily I would simply write to say that I had had a bully good
+time at the iniquitous place where you hang out, and by so doing--were
+I an ordinary man--would consider that I had paid my just debts and was
+quits with the world--and with you.  But not being ordinary--on the
+contrary, and without undue pride, denominating myself as a most
+extraordinary, rare, and orchid-like male creature, I feel that the
+appended narrative, albeit I do not figure therein as Sir Galahad or
+King Arthur, is no more than your just due.  I relinquish the steel
+helmet and holy grail adjuncts, and exploit myself to your ribald gaze
+and half-witted laughter just as I is.
+
+"But first, let me rid myself of my obligations.  I did enjoy every
+moment of my stay, and I recall, with a particular and somewhat
+pardonable pride, that you, Faith, on one occasion, took off my
+shoes,--a menial duty which I shall hereafter exact of you wherever we
+may be.  Don't complain.  It was yourself established the precedent,
+somewhat, if you will remember, against my will.
+
+"Aubrey, as usual, was all that was kind.
+
+"My duty now being done, I will proceed to narrate something which wild
+horses could not draw from me for anybody but you.
+
+"To begin with, you have been told that we are building a house, and
+you know how interested I am in all its details.  For example, a pile
+of bricks had been left on the third floor, which plainly belonged to
+the cellar.  I had to come up on ladders, the hole for the stairways
+being left open.  As the pulley for hoisting and lowering materials was
+still there, and an empty barrel stood invitingly near, I decided to
+assist Nature by lowering those bricks to their final resting-place.  I
+therefore filled the barrel with them, and hooked the barrel on to the
+pulley.
+
+"Now, Faith, as you have frequently remarked, I am thin, but just how
+thin I did not realize until I had yanked that barrel of bricks over
+this yawning aperture.  The first thing that attracted my attention was
+the bumping of my spine against the roof--or ceiling, or whatever was
+highest in the house.
+
+"I had presence of mind enough to kick at the barrel as I flew past it,
+so that it wouldn't dent my white waistcoat.  The rope slid with
+violence through my hands, taking my palms with it.  As I was pasted
+tranquilly against the skylight, and wondering how I was to get down,
+the problem was at once solved for me, but not to my satisfaction, by
+the bottom of the damned barrel giving out.  Picture to yourself the
+consequences.
+
+"The bricks being thus left on Mother Earth, I, with indescribable
+rapidity, having still hold of the rope, passed the staves in mid-air,
+as I hastily descended, lighting in a sitting posture on the pile of
+bricks.  The sensation, Faith and Aubrey, is not pleasant.
+
+"However, I possess a philosophic nature and a sense of humour.  I
+realized that the worst was over, and that I was well out of my scrape.
+I therefore released the rope, and fell to examining my bruises.  Will
+you believe it?  Those wretched barrel-staves had no more consideration
+than to descend crushingly upon my unprotected skull, and to remove
+portions of my ears in so doing.
+
+"I got out of there.  I don't care for new houses, and carpenters may
+leave bricks on the piano hereafter for all of me.
+
+"I have not told my wife.  She is sensitive, and loves me.  As neither
+of these aspersions describe you and Aubrey, I am impelled to state the
+incident to you, hoping that it may give your ribald selves a moment's
+diversion.  I called on Lady Mary at the Cambridge, and told this to
+her, and she laughed until she cried.  Then she said:
+
+"'Oh, Mr. Jimmie, promise me that you will tell the whole thing to
+mamma--just as you have told it to me!'
+
+"Imagine telling this to the Duchess of Strowther!
+
+"Again, I repeat, I enjoyed myself on your ranch.  I particularly
+enjoyed seeing Bee do the bucolic.
+
+"Give the enclosed to Billy, and tell the old man to buy something with
+it to remember me by.
+
+"And with kind remembrances to yourself and Aubrey, I am
+
+"Your slave,
+
+"JIMMIE."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE BREAKING UP OF MARY
+
+Prosperity disagrees with some people.  But with Mary I have always
+thought it was jealousy.
+
+As long as we had no one but her, and she practically ran the house and
+us, too, she was the same faithful, honest, sympathetic soul, who first
+won our young love at the Waldorf during our honeymoon, but after we
+came to Peach Orchard and needed old Amos for the horses, and a
+gardener, and two extra maids in the house, Mary's thrift took wings,
+and no Liande de Pougy or Otero could exceed her extravagance in
+ordering things she did not want, and never could use.
+
+I noticed that the bills were becoming perfectly unbearable, and, never
+dreaming that our good, faithful Mary could be at fault,--she, who used
+to declare that she had walked ten blocks to find lettuce at eight
+cents a head instead of nine, and who never could be persuaded that her
+time at home was worth far more to me than that extra cent,--I spoke to
+the grocer and asked him what he meant by such prices.
+
+"It isn't the prices, Mrs. Jardine--it's the quantity you have been
+ordering.  Are you running a hotel?"
+
+"No," I said.  "Not that I know of."
+
+"Well," he answered.   "Look here; here's three gallons of olive-oil
+you've ordered in one week."
+
+"Three gallons!" I gasped.  "You mean three bottles."
+
+"No, ma'am!  Three gallons!"
+
+"Who ordered it?"
+
+"That there old woman of yours,--the one that cusses so."
+
+"You mean Mary?" I asked, incredulously.
+
+"I don't know what her name is, but I know her tongue when I hear it.
+A white-haired old lady with specs."
+
+"That must be Mary," I mused.
+
+"Well, 'm, she said Mr. Jardine ate salad twice a day, and needed lots
+of oil."
+
+"So he does," I observed, drily, "but he doesn't bathe in it."
+
+This pleasantry was quite lost on the grocer, for he hastened to agree
+with me, with a--
+
+"Sure he doesn't," and a convincing wag of the head, as who should say,
+"Let no man accuse my friend, Mr. Jardine, of bathing in olive-oil,
+while I am about!"
+
+It was very soothing.
+
+"Well, just send it back, Mrs. Jardine," said he, presently, "it's in
+gallon cans and sealed."
+
+I went home with wrath in my soul, but intending to modify my bill by
+at least three gallons of olive-oil.  To my horror, however, I found
+that Mary had opened all three cans, and filled, perhaps, but one cruet
+from each.
+
+Mary's face fell when I accusingly pointed this fact out to her.
+
+"I forgot that I had any, Missis dear," she said, humbly.  "I know you
+hate to run out of things."
+
+"So I do," I said, severely, "but ten dollars' worth of olive-oil is
+rather too much to forget at a time, and there is absolutely no excuse
+for your opening all three of them."
+
+"I know it, Missis dear."
+
+I opened my mouth to say more, but her penitence, her humility, the
+sight of her old white head, moved me.  "Suppose," I said to myself,
+"that, in addition to her extravagance, she was as impudent, as brazen,
+and as defiant as most servants?  What would I do then?"
+
+I turned away grateful for small mercies.
+
+Soon after this, we began to take our meals out-of-doors.  I had made a
+little lawn near the house, and surrounded it with a wire fencing, over
+which sweet peas were climbing.  In the centre of this patch of grass
+was spread a rug made of green denim, just the colour of the grass, and
+on this stood a dinner-table of weathered oak.  Here, in fine weather,
+we took all our meals.  Breakfast was served anywhere from six to ten,
+and by looking from your bedroom windows, you might see a man in white
+flannels, smoking a cigarette and reading the morning paper over coffee
+or rolls or a dish of strawberries on thin green leaves.
+
+The women--until they had once tried the open-air breakfast--always
+preferred their coffee in their rooms.  But, if I do say it myself,
+Peach Orchard at six o'clock in the morning is the most beautiful spot
+on earth.  (The Angel has just thoughtfully observed that for me that
+is a very moderate statement.)
+
+One day while Lady Mary and Sir Wemyss were with us, I made a lobster
+salad for them.  I always use nasturtium stems in the mayonnaise for a
+lobster, and mix the blossoms in for garnishing and to serve it with.
+
+This suggested the colour scheme of yellow, so I decorated entirely
+with nasturtiums, and, beginning with grapefruit, I planned a yellow
+luncheon throughout.
+
+The Angel had seen me fussing with things in the servants' dining-room,
+and knew that I had made a salad.  I simply mention this to show why I
+continue to call him the Angel, though the honeymoon has waxed and
+waned many, many times.
+
+Now I admit that _I_ am forgetful.  I admit that _I_ am absent-minded,
+and I furthermore beg to state that with the Jimmies and the Beguelins
+and Bee tearing subjects for conversation into mental rags and tatters
+for the admiration and astonishment of the Lombards, I think I might be
+excused for not noticing that Mary forgot the salad.  She forgot it as
+completely as if salad had never dawned upon the culinary horizon.  The
+cook, not having made it, naturally dismissed it from _her_ mind, but
+_Mary_ had helped me make it.  _Mary_ put it in the ice-box with her
+own hands.  _Mary_ knew how I had worked over it.  Drat her!
+
+When all was over, the Angel strolled over to me and murmured:
+
+"I thought you were making that salad for luncheon, dear."
+
+I sprang from my chair as if shot, and stared at him wildly.  He
+regarded me with alarm.
+
+"So I _was_!" I shrieked, in a whisper.  I wrung my hands, and so great
+was my anguish that tears came into my eyes.
+
+"There!  There, dearie!" said Aubrey, kindly.  "Don't mind, little
+girl!  It would have been too much with all the rest of your lovely
+luncheon.  It will go _much_ better tonight."
+
+"You are an angel," I said, brokenly, "but I'll feel a little easier in
+my mind after I have killed Mary."
+
+It was hot, but I ran all the way to the house.  I found Mary.  The
+light of battle was in my eye, and she quailed before I spoke.
+
+"Where was that lobster salad?" I demanded.
+
+She turned pale, and sank into a chair.  I simply stood glaring at her.
+She peeked through her fingers to see if I were relenting as usual, but
+as I still looked blood-thirsty, she began to cry.  She covered her
+head with her apron, and rocked herself back and forth.
+
+"I forgot it, Missis dear!  Kick me if you want to.  I'll not say I
+don't deserve it, but since I burst me stomach I can't remember
+anything!"
+
+"Since you _what_?" I gasped, in horror.
+
+Mary took down her apron in triumph, and looked as important as though
+she had a funeral to go to.
+
+"Didn't you know, Missis?   In my mother's last sickness--God rest her
+soul!--I had to lift her every day, and I burst me stomach.  The doctor
+said so.  That's why I forget things!"
+
+I stood staring at her.  She was nodding her head, and smoothing her
+apron over her knees with a look of the greatest complacency.
+
+I thought of many, many things to say.  And in several languages.  But
+all of them put together would have been inadequate, so, without one
+word, I turned and walked slowly and thoughtfully away.
+
+That did not phase Mary in the least.  She had looked for voluble and
+valuable sympathy--such as generally pours from me on the slightest
+provocation.  She was so disappointed that she grew ugly and broke a
+soap-dish.
+
+"Aubrey," I said to the Angel, "how is your memory connected with your
+stomach?"
+
+"Very nearly," he answered, pleasantly.  "My stomach reminds me of many
+things,--when it's time to eat, and when it's time to drink."
+
+"So then, if anything happened to that reminder, you might forget even
+to get dinner if you were a cook, or to serve it if you were a butler?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"I see," I answered, thoughtfully.
+
+"If I might beg to inquire the wherefore of this thirst for
+information--" hazarded the Angel, politely.
+
+"Oh, nothing much.  Only Mary says she has burst her stomach, and
+that's why she forgets everything."
+
+Fortunately, Aubrey was sitting in his Morris chair.  If he had flung
+himself about in that manner on a bench, he would have broken his back.
+
+"Mary," said Aubrey, when he could speak, "ought to go in a book."
+
+"Mary," I said, with equal emphasis, "ought to go into an asylum."
+
+It was not long after that that old Katie, the cook, came up-stairs,
+and beckoned me from the room.
+
+"You said, Mrs. Jardine, that you'd never seen butter made.  Now I've
+got the first churning from the Guernsey cow in the churn, and if you
+would like to see it--"
+
+She never finished the sentence, for I rushed past her so that she had
+to follow me into the milk-room.  (Bee wanted me to call it "the
+dairy.")
+
+I sat by while Katie churned and told stories.  Then while she was
+turning it out, and I was raving over the colour of it, I heard a
+suspicious sniffing behind me, and behold, there was Mary, with her
+apron to her eyes, murmuring, brokenly, "My poor dear mother!  Oh, my
+poor dear mother!"
+
+Seeing that she had attracted my attention, she walked away, stumbling
+over the threshold to emphasize her grief.
+
+"What's the matter with Mary, Mrs. Jardine?" asked old Katie,
+wonderingly.
+
+"Her mother used to churn, she told me, and I suppose it brings it all
+back to her to see you churn," I said, with as straight a face as I
+could muster.
+
+"Dear me!" said Katie, in high disgust.  "_I_ had a mother and _she_
+used to churn, but it doesn't turn me into salt water every time I hear
+the dasher going!"
+
+Katie is a shrewd woman, so I said nothing in answer to that.  Finally
+Katie lifted her chin--a way she had--and added:
+
+"I'm thinking it sits bad on her mind to see you in here with me,
+instead of with her!"
+
+As I still said nothing, she apparently repented herself, for she said,
+a moment later:
+
+"But Mary was mighty fond of her old father and mother.  She keeps
+mementoes of them ahl over the place.  She has now what she calls his
+Polean pitcher--"
+
+"His what?"
+
+"Shure _I_ don't know!  But she says it is.  It's got a man on the
+outside, and you pours out of his three-cornered hat."
+
+"Oh, yes," I said.  "I remember now.  What did you say she called it?"
+
+"There it is now, on the shelf above your head.  But how it got there,
+_I_ don't know.  And Mary would be throwing fits if she saw it."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because she says her father used to send her every night, when she was
+a little girl, to get his Polean pitcher filled with beer.  She says
+she minds him every time she looks at it--Gahd rest his soul."
+
+I turned and looked at the little squat figure of Napoleon.  It was the
+pitcher the little man had given Mary for getting our trade for him,
+when we were first married.
+
+"She cried once when I put some cream in it to make pot-cheese," said
+Katie.  "And she emptied it and washed it and kissed it; then she stood
+it on th' shelf with her picture of the Pope that you gave her."
+
+Just then Mary, as if suspecting something, appeared at the door.  She
+looked suspiciously from one to the other.
+
+"I was just afther telling the Missis, Mary, how careful you are of the
+Polean pitcher you used to rush the growler with for your poor dear
+father," said Katie, with a shy grin that was gone before we fairly saw
+it.
+
+Mary turned away without a word.  She never spoke to me on the subject,
+nor I to her.
+
+The next day a gipsy fortune-teller came to Peach Orchard, and told the
+fortunes of all the servants.  She predicted a rich husband for Katie,
+and a fit of sickness for Mary.  I think she could not have pleased
+each better.
+
+That night we were sitting in the Angel's porch-study, when the most
+dreadful howls and groans began to emanate from the kitchen.  We all
+hurried to the scene, and there, prone upon the floor, lay Mary,
+weeping and twitching herself and moaning that she was going to die.
+
+"It's the fortune-teller," said Katie in my ear.  But Aubrey heard.
+
+"Get up, Mary!" he said, sternly.  (I did not know the Angel _could_ be
+so stern.)
+
+To the surprise of all of us, Mary obediently scrambled to her feet.
+
+"Now go to your room, and go properly to bed.  Katie will help you.
+Then I shall telephone for the doctor."
+
+Mary began to look frightened.
+
+"Don't send for the doctor, Boss dear," she pleaded.  "I'll be better
+soon.  These attacks don't mean anything."
+
+"The gipsy predicted that you were going to have a fit of sickness, and
+I believe it has come," said Aubrey, seriously.  "Take her to bed
+quickly, Katie.  I don't want her to die in the kitchen."
+
+The two old women stumbled up the back stairway together.
+
+"Oh, Aubrey, what is it?" I whispered.
+
+"It is the breaking up of Mary," said the Angel when we were alone.
+"It has been going on for some time.  Either jealousy, or old age, or
+imagination, or incipient insanity has seized our poor old
+servant-friend, and well-nigh wrecked her.  I have tried various
+remedies, but all have failed.  I didn't want to bother you with it
+before, but the fact is, Faith dear, Mary must go.  She has outlived
+her usefulness with us."
+
+"I've been afraid of it for some time," I answered.  "But it seems too
+bad.  She has been with us through some strenuous times, Aubrey."
+
+"I know, dear, and I have no idea of turning the old creature adrift.
+The last time I was in town I spoke to Doctor North and arranged to
+send Mary to his sanatorium for a month."
+
+"You are good, Aubrey."
+
+Aubrey smoked in silence for a few moments.
+
+"Yes, Mary has been with us through deep waters and hard fights, and
+never has she flinched.  Perhaps it is her nature.  Perhaps she just
+can't stand the lameness of prosperity."
+
+In a day or two we sent Mary to Doctor North's sanatorium, a badly
+scared and deeply repentant old woman, and Aubrey wired Doctor North:
+
+"Is this a genuine case, or is she faking?"
+
+The answer came back:
+
+"Faking."
+
+Poor Mary!  She escaped from the sanatorium on the third day.  But we
+never saw her again, and though we often write to her and send her
+things, she never answers.
+
+I think it was the "Polean pitcher."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+AND THEY LIVED HAPPY EVER AFTER
+
+End of the story--end of the chapter--end of the book!
+
+And what could be more satisfactory than the ending of the old
+fairy-tales,--"and so they were married, and lived happy ever after"?
+Not for them the strenuous adjustment of temper and temperament, of
+extravagance and poverty, with the divorce court at the end of the
+second year.  In the blessed tales of one's childhood, they married and
+lived happily.
+
+Ay, and for ever after!
+
+It is a long time,--but I look forward to it without fear, yea, even
+with gladness.  Not that I would so dare, did it depend upon _my_
+temper, _my_ moods, _my_ days of ailing and depression, but ah, I
+depend upon my husband's.  He has his days of ailing and depression,
+but I never know of them until they are past.  He has his illnesses,
+but he conceals them from me.  If things go wrong, his face only grows
+brighter for my eyes to rest upon, nor is he ever too busy or too
+preoccupied to stop his work and soothe my nervous fears.  Disagreeable
+people are not allowed to annoy me.  Disagreeable letters are held over
+until their sting has grown less.  Disagreeable remarks are robbed of
+their venom by his kindly interpretation.  He stands as a bulwark
+between me and the world.
+
+"And so they were married, and lived happily ever after."
+
+To live happily means for one or the other to ignore self.  Aubrey is
+the epitome of selflessness.  So that I claim no credit for the
+noiseless wheels of our domestic machinery, for over trifles I am
+inclined to go up in a puff of vapour and blue smoke, and I love my own
+way.
+
+But somehow, after a year or two of seeing Aubrey give his way up to
+mine, without a frown or a word of remonstrance, and with such a look
+of unfathomable love in his wonderful eyes, I rather lost the taste for
+demanding my own way.  Even when I got it some of its flavour had
+disappeared.  Was I contrary?  I do not know.  I only knew that I began
+to pretend--I had to pretend, or Aubrey would not have allowed it--to
+want the things that he wanted, and to want them done in the way he
+liked.  And with such a rich reward!  Do all sacrifices made for love
+carry with them such immediate and rich rewards, I wonder?  Can I ever
+forget the Angel's face when it dawned upon him that I was giving up my
+way for his?  He realized it first as he was standing in front of me,
+filling his pipe.  I saw it come first into his eyes, then tremble upon
+his sensitive lips, then he threw aside his precious pipe and knelt
+down beside my chair, and gathered me all up in his arms, and hid his
+face in my shoulder.  What he said I shall never tell to any one, but I
+shall remember it in my grave, and it will be surging in my ears in the
+other world.  Is sacrifice hard for one you love?
+
+"And so they were married, and lived happily ever after."
+
+That, in the old-fashioned story, was the end of everything.  Married
+love evidently took no hold upon the youthful imagination, or upon that
+of our little selves.  We wanted all the anguish to come to the unwed,
+and the happiness and dulness of unchanging bliss to descend upon the
+bridal pair.
+
+Then somebody discovered that marriage was not the end; it was only the
+beginning, and somebody acted on this wonderful discovery and began to
+tell the varying fortunes of those stupid, cut and dried, buried and
+laid away persons, the bride and groom, whom we had hitherto parted
+with at the church door.  It was as if the carriage door slammed upon
+their happiness, and ended their career.  Their ultimate fate was for
+ever settled.  They died to the world with the hurling of the rice, and
+vanished from the sight of readers with the casting of the old shoe.
+
+Then we learned that life began with marriage.  Has our taste changed,
+or have we only awakened to the truth?
+
+Ask any woman who is happily married, and see if she says she can ever
+remember anything before she became a wife.  I remember that certain
+things did happen before I met Aubrey, but I recall them as I sometimes
+try to tell him a dream which is indistinct and somewhat unreal.
+
+But that is because I have found, out of all the world, my mate.
+
+How does any one dare to marry?  As I look around me, at the mistakes
+other women have made, I wonder that I had the courage to marry even
+the Angel.  For supposing he hadn't been the right man!  I'd have been
+dead by this time, so there's that comfort anyway.
+
+But he was!
+
+To those who know the Angel, I need say no more.  And even to those who
+never have seen him, and never will know him except in this chronicle,
+the wonder of it can never cease, for so few women, out of all the men
+in the universe, find their mates, as I have found mine.
+
+Men propose and women marry, but the misfits are palpable all through
+life to others, and frequently to themselves.  They look back and
+wonder, when it is too late, how they ever imagined that they could
+live together without wanting to murder each other daily.  Yet they
+console themselves with the thought that theirs is only an ordinary
+marriage, containing no more jarring notes than most.  Yet if they ever
+stopped to think what might have been--if they dared look into the
+inner chamber where hope lies dead, they would wonder that their misery
+was not so stamped upon their faces that people would turn to look at
+them in the street and stare at the hopelessness of their broken lives.
+Do the unhappily married ever dare pause to think of the real mate of
+each, lost somewhere in the wide world, perhaps going about, ever
+seeking, seeking, perhaps greatly mismated and equally unhappy?
+
+  "Two shall be born the whole wide world apart
+  And each in different tongues and have no thought
+  Each of the other's being and no heed;
+  And these, o'er unknown seas to unknown lands
+  Shall cross, escaping wreck, defying death
+  And all unconsciously shape every act
+  And send each wandering step to this one end
+  That, one day, out of darkness they shall meet
+  And read life's meaning in each other's eyes.
+
+  "And two shall walk some narrow way of life
+  So nearly side by side, that should one turn
+  Ever so little space to left or right
+  They needs must stand acknowledged face to face.
+  And yet, with wistful eyes that never meet,
+  With groping hands that never clasp, and lips
+  Calling in vain to ears that never hear
+  They seek each other all their weary days
+  And die unsatisfied--and this is Fate!"
+
+
+When I realize the beautiful and terrible truth of these two verses, I
+grow dumb with terror, and turn filled to overflowing with gratitude
+that, no matter what others may have done or will do; in spite of sad
+books and mournful plays; in spite of winter winds and illness and
+sorrow and the bitter disappointment of hope deferred; in spite of
+bodily ills and heart sickness and the times when even the strongest
+soul faints by the roadside, no matter what betide, I can always turn
+my face homeward, and there will be Aubrey.
+
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, At Home with the Jardines, by Lilian Bell
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: At Home with the Jardines
+
+
+Author: Lilian Bell
+
+
+
+Release Date: July 22, 2006  [eBook #18895]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AT HOME WITH THE JARDINES***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Al Haines
+
+
+
+AT HOME WITH THE JARDINES
+
+by
+
+LILIAN BELL
+
+Author of "Abroad with the Jimmies," "Hope Loring,", etc.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A. Wessels Company
+New York
+1906
+
+Copyright, 1902
+by Harper & Brothers
+
+Copyright, 1903
+by the Ridgway-Thayer Company
+
+Copyright, 1904
+by Ainslee Magazine Co.
+
+Copyright, 1904
+by L. C. Page & Company (Incorporated)
+
+(All rights reserved)
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+Dr. John Sedgwick Billings, Jr.
+
+AND
+
+Dr. John Clarendon Todd
+
+
+WHOSE COURAGE, SKILL, AND WISDOM
+
+SAVED A PRECIOUS LIFE
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+Chapter
+
+    I. MARY
+   II. THEORIES
+  III. ON THE SUBJECT OF JANITORS
+   IV. THE ANGEL AND THE AGENT
+    V. HOW WE TAMED THE COOK
+   VI. THE BEST MAN'S STORY
+  VII. THE PRICE OF QUIET
+ VIII. MOVING
+   IX. HOW BEE TRIED TO MAKE US SMART
+    X. OUR FIRST HOUSE-PARTY
+   XI. ON THE GENTLE ART OF WASTING OTHER PEOPLE'S TIME
+  XII. A LETTER FROM JIMMIE
+ XIII. THE BREAKING UP OF MARY
+  XIV. AND THEY LIVED HAPPY EVER AFTER
+
+
+
+
+At Home with the Jardines
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+MARY
+
+I have never dared even inquire why our best man began calling my
+husband the Angel.  He was with us a great deal during the first months
+of our marriage, and he is very observing, so I decided to let sleeping
+dogs lie.  I, too, am observing.
+
+It is only fair to state, in justice to the best man, that I am a woman
+of emotional mountain peaks and dark, deep valleys, while the Angel is
+one vast and sunny plateau.  With him rain comes in soothing showers,
+while rain in my disposition means a soaking, drenching torrent which
+sweeps away cattle and cottages and leaves roaring rivers in its wake.
+But it took Mary to discover that the smiling plateau was bedded on
+solid rock, and had its root in infinity.
+
+Mary is my cook!
+
+Yet Mary is more than cook.  She is my housekeeper, mother, trained
+nurse, corporation counsel, keeper of the privy purse, chancellor of
+the exchequer, fighter of exorbitant bills, seamstress, linen woman,
+doctor of small ills, the acme of perpetual good nature, and my best
+friend.
+
+Cheiro, when he read my palm, said he never before had seen a hand
+which had less of a line of luck than mine.  He said that I was obliged
+to put forth tremendous effort for whatever I achieved.  But that was
+before Mary selected me for a mistress, for Mary was my first bit of
+pure luck.  Our meeting came about in this way.
+
+We were at the Waldorf for our honeymoon, which shows how inexperienced
+we were, when a chance acquaintance of the Angel's said to him one
+night in the billiard-room:
+
+"Jardine, I hear that you are going to housekeeping!"
+
+"Yes," said Aubrey, "we are."
+
+"Has your wife engaged a cook yet?"
+
+"Why, no, I don't believe she has thought about it."
+
+"Well, I know exactly the woman for her.  Elderly, honest, experienced,
+cooks game to perfection, doesn't drink, thoroughly competent in every
+way, and the quaintest character I ever knew.  Lived in her last place
+twenty-three years, and only left when the family was broken up.  Shall
+I send her to see you?"
+
+"Do," said Aubrey.
+
+He forgot to tell me about it, so the next morning while he was
+shaving, a knock came, and in walked Mary.  I was in a kimono, writing
+notes and waiting for breakfast to be sent up.  Hearing voices, Aubrey
+came to the door with one-half of his face covered with lather, and
+said:
+
+"Oh, yes.  I forgot to tell you.  Are you the cook sent by Mr.
+Zanzibar?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said Mary.
+
+Aubrey retired to the bathroom again, communicating with me in
+pantomime.
+
+I looked at Mary, and loved her.  We eyed each other in silence for a
+moment.
+
+"Won't you sit down?" I said, looking at her white hair.
+
+"Thank you, but I'll stand."
+
+That settled it.  I didn't care if she stole the shoes off my feet if
+she knew her place as well as that.  Her face beamed; her skin was
+fresh and rosy.  Her blue eyes twinkled through her spectacles.
+
+"Would you," I said, "would you like to take entire charge of two
+orphans?"
+
+She burst into a fit of laughter.
+
+"Is it you and your husband, you mean?"
+
+"It is.  I wish you would come and keep house for us."
+
+"I'd like to, Missis.  I would, indeed."
+
+Again I looked at her and loved her harder.
+
+"Have you any references?" I asked.
+
+"None except the recommendations of the people who have been coming to
+the house for twenty years.  The family are all scattered."
+
+"I have none either," I said.  "Shall we take each other on trust?"
+
+"If you are willing," she laughed.
+
+And so we selected each other, and I am just as much flattered as she
+could possibly be, for neither one so far has given the other notice.
+
+This sketch can only serve to introduce her, as it would take a book to
+do her justice.  She has snow-white hair and a face in which decision
+and kindness are mingled.  She has a tongue which drops blessings and
+denunciations with equal facility.  Born of Irish parents, she belongs
+to the gentry, yet no fighting Irishman could match her temper when
+roused, and the Billingsgate which passes through the dumb-waiter
+between our Mary and the tradespeople is enough to turn the colour of
+the walls.  Yet though I have seen her pull a recreant grocery boy in
+by his hair, literally by his hair, tradesmen, one and all, adore her,
+and do errands for her which ought to earn their discharge, and they
+bring her the pick of the market to avoid having anything less choice
+thrown in their faces when they come for the next order.  She made the
+ice-man grind coffee for her for a week because he once forgot to come
+up and put the ice into the refrigerator.
+
+She went among all the tradespeople, and named prices to them which we
+were to pay if they obtained our valuable patronage.  One little man
+who kept a sort of general store was so impressed by her manner and the
+awful lies she told about the grandeur of her employers that he
+presented her with a pitcher in the shape of the figure of Napoleon.
+Something so very absurd happened in connection with this pitcher some
+three years later that I particularly remembered the time she got it,
+and the little man who gave it to her.
+
+She kept house for seven years in Paris, which explains her reverence
+for food, for we have discovered that the only way to dispose of things
+is to eat them.  Otherwise, in different guises, they return to us
+until in desperation the Angel sprinkles cigar-ashes over what is left.
+She pays all the bills and contests her rights to the last penny, once
+keeping the baker out of his whole bill for five months because he
+would not recognize her claim for a receipted bill for eight cents
+which she had paid at the door.  As to her relation to us in a social
+way, those of you who have lived in the South will understand her
+privileges, when I say that she is a white "Mammy."  Her dear old heart
+is pure gold, and such her quick sympathy that if I want to cry I have
+to lock myself in my room where she won't see me, for if she sees tears
+in my eyes she comes and puts her arms around me and weeps, too,
+without even knowing why, but just with the heavenly pity of one of
+God's own, although before her eyes are dry she may be damning the
+butcher in language which curdles the blood.
+
+She abhors profanity, and never mingles holy names in her sentences
+which contain fluent d's, but being an excellent Catholic enables her
+to accentuate her remarks with exclamations which she says are prayers;
+and as these are never denunciatory her theory is most conscientiously
+lived up to.
+
+In our first housekeeping, our rawness in all matters practical wrung
+Mary's heart.  She had grown up from a slip of a girl in the employ of
+one family, and ours was only her second experiment in "living out."
+As her first employers were people of wealth and with half-grown
+grandchildren when their magnificent home was finally broken up, you
+can imagine the change to Mary of living with newly married people,
+engaged in their first struggle with the world.  But ours was just the
+problem which appealed to the motherly heart of our spinster Mary, for
+she yearned over us with an exceeding great yearning, and of her value
+to us you yourselves shall be the judge.
+
+The first thing I remember which called my attention to Mary's firm
+manner of doing business was one day when I was writing letters in the
+Angel's study.  We had only moved in the day before, and the ink on the
+lease was hardly dry, when I heard a great noise in the kitchen as of
+moving chairs on a bare floor and Mary's voice raised in fluent
+denunciation.  I flew to the scene and saw a strange man standing on
+the table with his hands on the electric light metre over the door,
+while Mary had one hand on his left ankle, and the other on his
+coat-tails.  Her very spectacles were bristling with anger.
+
+"Come down out of that, young feller!" she was crying, jerking both
+coat-tails and ankle of the unhappy man.
+
+"Leggo my leg!" he retorted.
+
+"_I'll_ pull your leg for you," cried Mary, "old woman that I am, more
+than any of your young jades, if you don't drop that metre.  Come down,
+I say!"
+
+"What is the trouble, Mary?" I asked.
+
+"Missis!  The impidence of that brat!  He's come to shut off the
+electric light without a word of warning, and you going to have company
+this blessed night for dinner."
+
+"Here are my orders," said the man, sullenly.  "I'd show them to you if
+you'd leggo my coat-tails," he added, furiously.
+
+"I'll pull them off before I let go," said Mary, grimly.  "A pretty way
+for the New York Electric Light Company to do business _I_ say!  If you
+want a five-dollar deposit from the Missis why didn't you write and
+give notice like a Christian?  Do you suppose we are thieves?  Are we
+going to loot the house of the electric bulbs, and go and live in
+splendour on the guilty sales of them?"
+
+"Let me cut it off according to orders, and I'll go to the office and
+explain, and come back and turn it on for you!" pleaded the man.
+
+But Mary's grasp on leg and coat was firm.
+
+"Not on yer life," she said, derisively.  "You'll come back this day
+week or next month at your own good pleasure, and Mr. Jardine will be
+doing the explaining and the running to the office.  Make up your mind
+that the thing is going to be settled _my_ way, or you'll stay here
+till you do.  _I'm_ in no hurry."
+
+"Make her leggo of me," he said to me.
+
+Mary gave me a look, and I obediently turned my back.  The man slammed
+the little door of the metre, and Mary let go of him.  He climbed down.
+
+"I can turn it off in the basement just as well," he said, with a grin.
+
+I was about to interfere and offer a cheque, but Mary was too quick for
+me.  She took him by the arm, with a "Come, Missis," and marched him
+before her, with me meekly following, to the telephone in the Angel's
+study.
+
+"Now, then, young feller, call up the office!" she commanded.  The man
+obeyed.  Indeed few would have dared to resist.
+
+"Now get away and let the Missis talk to your boss.  Tell him what we
+think of such doings, Missis."
+
+I, too, obeyed her.  I stated the case in firm language.  He
+apologized, he grovelled.  It was all a mistake (Mary sniffed); the man
+had no such orders (Mary snorted).  I could send a cheque at my
+leisure, and if I would permit him to speak to his henchman all would
+be well.
+
+I handed the receiver to a very cowed and surly man, whom Mary
+persistently addressed as "Major."  As he turned from the telephone,
+Mary surveyed him with twinkling eyes.
+
+"Are you going to turn off our electric light, Major?" she said,
+laughing at him.  To my surprise, he laughed with her.  Tradespeople
+always did.
+
+"Not to-day," he said as amiably as though she had been entertaining
+him at tea.  Then she let him out, and went back to her dusting.  She
+looked at me compassionately.
+
+"It's the way that dummed company takes to get people to pay their
+deposits promptly," she said.  "But trust Mary Jane Few Clothes to get
+ahead of a little trick like that!  My, Missis, isn't it hot!"
+
+I went back to my letter-writing feeling somewhat pensive.  It was
+clear that we had a competent person in the kitchen, and as for myself
+it would not disturb me in the least if she managed me, provided she
+dealt as peremptorily with the housework as she handled any other
+difficult proposition.  But with the Angel?  I was not very well
+acquainted with my husband myself, and I was slightly exercised as to
+whether he would bow his neck to Mary's yoke as meekly as I intended to
+do or not.  I seemed to feel intuitively that Mary was a great and
+gallant general in the domestic field, and my mother's thirty years'
+war with incompetent servants made me yearn to close my lips as
+hermetically as an army officer's and blindly obey my general's orders
+with an unquestioning confidence that the battle would be won by her
+genius.  If it were lost, then it would be my turn to interfere and
+criticize and show how affairs should have been managed.
+
+But men, as a rule, have no such intuition, and I wondered about the
+Angel.  How little I knew him!
+
+I was arranging the flowers for the table when the Angel came home.
+When he had gone back to dress, Mary came up to me and in a
+confidential way said:
+
+"Missis, dear, don't tell your father about the electric light till
+after dinner,--excuse me for putting in my two cents, but I always was
+nosey!"
+
+"Tell my father?" I repeated.  My father was in Washington.
+
+"Boss!  Mr. Jardine!" explained Mary.
+
+"Why did you call him my father?  Surely you must know--"
+
+"Pardon me, dear child.  I always call him your father when I'm talking
+to myself, because nobody but your father could be as careful of you as
+that dear man!"
+
+I sat down to laugh.
+
+"You don't believe much in husbands, then?" I said.
+
+"Saving your presence, that I don't.  I believe in fathers, and so I
+always call that blessed man your father.  Will you believe it, Missis,
+he wouldn't let me reach up to take the globes off to clean them, nor
+lift the five-gallon water-bottle when it came in full from the grocer.
+He treats my white hairs as if they were his mother's--God love him!"
+
+I listened to Mary with a dubious mind, divided between admiration of
+the Angel and the intention of telling him not to help her too much,
+for fear, after the manner of her kind, she should discover a delicacy
+of constitution which would prevent her from lifting the water-bottle
+even when it was empty.
+
+"And I'll tell you what I've been doing on the quiet for him to show
+him that I'm not ungrateful.  You know his white waistcoats have been
+done up at the laundry so scandalous that I'd not have the face to be
+taking your money if I were that laundryman, so I've just done them
+myself, and would you take a look at them before I carry one back for
+him to put on?"
+
+I took a look, and they were of that faultless order of work that makes
+you think the millennium has come.
+
+I took one back to where the Angel stood before the mirror wrestling in
+a speaking silence with his tie.  I had not been married long, but I
+had already learned that there are some moments in a man's life which
+are not for speech.  He smiled at me in the glass to let me know that
+he recognized my presence, and would attend to me later.
+
+When the tie was made, I drew a long breath.
+
+"The country is saved once more!" I sighed.
+
+He laughed.  I mean he smiled.  Not once a month does he laugh, and
+always then at something which I don't think in the least funny.
+
+As he took the waistcoat from my hand his face lighted up.
+
+"Now that is something like!" he said.  "I tell you it pays to complain
+once in awhile.  I wrote that laundry a scorcher about these
+waistcoats."
+
+"It does pay," I said.  Then I explained.
+
+"Do you know what I think?" he said.  "I think we've got a regular old
+cast-iron angel in Mary."
+
+"Oh, rap on wood," I cried, frantically reaching out with both hands.
+"Do you want her to spill soup down your neck tonight?"
+
+"I didn't think," he said, apologetically, groping for wood.   "_Now_,
+do I dare speak?"
+
+"Yes, go on.  What do you think of her?"
+
+"I think she is thoroughly competent to deal with the emergencies of a
+New York apartment-house.  This morning just before I went out I heard
+her holding a heart-to-heart talk with the grocer.  It seems that the
+eggs come in boxes done up in pink cotton and laid by patent hens that
+stamp their owner's name on each egg.  For the privilege of eating
+these delicacies we pay the Paris price for eggs.  Now it would also
+seem that these hens guarantee at that price to lay and deliver to the
+purchaser an unbroken, uncracked, wholly perfect egg in the first flush
+of its youth.  But to-day the careless hens had delivered two cracked
+eggs out of one unhappy dozen to Mary.  With a directness of address
+seldom met with in good society, Mary thus delivered herself down the
+dumb-waiter, 'Well, damn you for a groceryman--'"
+
+"Oh, Aubrey!  Did she say that word?"
+
+"She said just that.  'When we are paying a dollar a look at eggs, what
+do you mean by sending me two cracked ones out of twelve?  To be sure
+_somebody_ has been sitting on these eggs, but I'll swear it wasn't a
+hen.'  His reply was inaudible, but he was just going out to his wagon,
+and he was opening up his heart to the butcher boy as I passed.  'I'd
+give five dollars, poor as I am,' he said, 'for one look at that old
+woman's face, for she talks for all the world just like my own mother.'
+And with that he exchanged the two cracked eggs for two perfect ones
+out of another order, and took the good ones in to Mary."
+
+
+"I wonder if it will last," I said to a woman who was envying the fact
+that I could persuade Aubrey to go out with me whenever I wanted him to.
+
+"It _won't_ last!" she declared, cheerfully.  "And it won't last that
+Mr. Jardine will go calling with you evenings.  The clubs will claim
+him within six months, and as for Mary--I'll tell you what I'll do.
+I'll wager you a ten-pound box of candy that within a year you will
+have lost both your husband and your cook."
+
+"Lost my husband," I cried, my face stiffening.
+
+"Oh, I only mean as we all lose our husbands," she explained, airily.
+"I used to have Jack, but I am married now to golf links and the club."
+
+"I'll take your bet," I said.
+
+"You'll lose," she laughed.  "They are both too perfect to last."
+
+"They are not!" I cried.
+
+But when the door closed, I rapped on wood.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THEORIES
+
+If there is anything more delightful than to furnish one's first home,
+I have yet to discover it.  Aubrey says that "moving in goes it one
+better," but his preference is based on the solid satisfaction he takes
+in putting in two shelves where one grew before and in providing
+towel-racks and closet-hooks wherever there is an inviting wall-space
+for them.
+
+But to me, even the list I made out and changed and figured on and
+priced before I made a single purchase was full of possibilities, and
+contained wild flutters of excitement on account of certain innovations
+I wished to try.
+
+"Aubrey," I said one evening as the Angel sat reading Draper's
+"Intellectual Development of Europe," "have you any pet theories?"
+
+"What's that?   Pet theories about what?"
+
+"Housekeeping."
+
+"I don't quite understand.  I've never kept house, you know."
+
+"I mean did your mother keep her house and buy her furniture and manage
+her servants to suit you, or exactly as you would do if you had been in
+her place?"
+
+"Not in the least," said the Angel, laying down his book, all interest
+at once.
+
+"Ah!  I knew it!  Then you _have_ theories!  That's what I wanted to
+bring out.  Now I have theories, too.  One is the rag-bag theory."
+
+"The--?"
+
+"The theory that every housewife must have a rag-bag.  My mother had
+one because her mother did and _her_ mother because _hers_ did, and so
+on back to the English one who probably brought _her_ rag-bag across
+with her.  Ours was made of bed-ticking, and had a draw-string in it
+and hung in the bathroom closet.  Now if you ever tried to lift a heavy
+bag down from a hook and knew the bother of emptying it of neat little
+rolls of every sort of cloth from big rolls of cotton-batting to little
+bundles of silk patches and having to look through every one of them to
+find a scrap of white taffeta to line a stock, then you know what a
+trial of temper the family rag-bag is."
+
+"And you--" said the Angel, who is definite in his conclusions.
+
+"_I_ mean to have a large drawer in a good light absolutely
+_sacrificed_, as some people would call it, to the scraps.  When you
+want a rag or a bone or a hank of hair in our house, all you will have
+to do is to pull out an easy sliding drawer without opening a door that
+sticks, or crawling into a dark corner, or having to light a candle, or
+doing anything to ruffle your temper or your hair.  A flood of
+brilliant sunlight or moonlight will pour into my rag-drawer, and a few
+pawings of your unoccupied hand will bring everything to the top.
+Won't that be joyful?"
+
+Aubrey, who loves to fuss about repairs and is for ever wanting
+material, was so enchanted with the picture I drew that he longed to
+have a cut finger to bind up on the spot.
+
+"Have you any more theories?" he asked, laying Draper on his knee
+without even marking his place.
+
+"A few.  Some are about buying furniture."
+
+"We want everything good," said Aubrey, firmly.
+
+"More than that.  We want _some_ things beautiful.  And some things
+_very_ expensive."
+
+I thought I saw the bank-book give a nervous flop just here.  But
+perhaps it was only Aubrey's expression of countenance which changed.
+
+"For instance, I want no chairs for show.  Every spot intended to rest
+the human frame in our house shall bring a sigh of relief from the
+weary one who sinks into it.  I have already started it by the couch I
+ordered last week for your study.  I went to the man who takes orders
+and said: 'Have you ever read "Trilby"?'  And he said no, but his wife
+had when it was the rage about five years ago.  I had brought a copy on
+purpose, so I read him that paragraph from the first chapter describing
+the studio.  Here it is: 'An immense divan spread itself in width and
+length and delightful thickness just beneath the big north window, the
+business window--a divan so immense that three well-fed, well-contented
+Englishmen could all lie lazily smoking their pipes on it at once,
+without being in each other's way, and very often did!'  He smiled and
+said it made very agreeable reading, to which I replied that I wanted
+one made just like it."
+
+"What did he say?"
+
+"Well, of course he argued.  He wanted to make it a normal size.  He
+wanted to know the size of the doors it would have to go through, and I
+told him it was for an apartment.  As soon as he knew that he wanted to
+make the lower part of cedar to store furs in for the winter.  I said:
+'No, no!  This is a luxury.  There is to be nothing useful about it.  I
+want the whole inside given up to springs!'  He said, 'Turkish?' and I
+said yes, and put in two sets of them.  At that he began to catch the
+spirit of the thing and took an interest.  We argued so over the size
+of it that finally I told him to send out and measure the elevator and
+the door and the room it was to go in and make it just as large as
+those spaces would allow.  So you'll have a divan ten by six.  I wanted
+it bigger, but I couldn't have got it through any front door."
+
+"Why, won't it about fill that little room?" asked my husband, with a
+trace of anxiety in his tone.
+
+"Only about half-way.  There's just room for a little table of books at
+one end of the divan, and I'm going to have a movable electric lamp
+with a ground-glass globe and a green shade to be good for the eyes.
+Your pipe-rack will be on the wall over it.  Then by squeezing a little
+there will be just room for my writing-chair,--you know the one with
+the desk on the arm and the little drawer for note-paper?"
+
+Aubrey got up and came over to where I had my list, and Draper fell to
+the floor unnoticed.
+
+"I never heard anything sound so comfortable," he said.  The Angel is
+always appreciative, and, moreover, is never too absorbed or too tired
+to express it fluently.  That's one of the things which make it such a
+pleasure to plan his comfort.
+
+"Doesn't it sound winter evening-y and snowy outside?" I said.
+
+"I can hear the wind howling," said the Angel.  "What's the next item?"
+
+"Well, now we come to a theory.  Of course I have had no more
+experience than you in buying furniture, but it stands to reason that
+some of the things we buy now will be with us at death.  Some furniture
+stays by you like a murder.  For instance, a dining-room table.  I have
+known some very rich people in my life, Aubrey, but I have seldom seen
+any who grew rich gradually who had had the moral courage to discard a
+dining-room table if it were even decently good.  Have you ever thought
+about that?"
+
+"I can't say that I have, but it is fraught with possibility.  'The
+Ethics of Household Furniture' would make good reading."
+
+"Well, haven't you," I persisted, "in all seriousness, haven't you seen
+some very handsome modern dining-rooms marred by a dinner-table too
+good to throw away, which you were convinced the family had begun
+housekeeping with?"
+
+"Yes, I have!" cried Aubrey.  "You are right, I have.  I thought you
+were jesting at first."
+
+"Well, I am, sort of half-way.  But the sort of dinner-table I want to
+buy is no joke.  It is one which will grace an apartment or a palace.
+We can be proud of it even when we are rich.  Yet it is not showy, or
+one which will be too screamingly prominent.  It is of carved oak with
+the value all in the carving.  It costs--"  Here I whispered the price,
+for to us it was almost a crime to think of it.
+
+The Angel looked sober when my whisper reached him.  But he did not
+commit himself.  I eyed him anxiously.
+
+"But to make up for that outlay, here is the way I have planned the
+rest of the house.  Let's have no drawing-room."
+
+"No drawing-room?  Then where will you receive guests?"
+
+"The room will be there, and people may come into it and sit down, but
+it will not be familiar ground to strangers.  They will find themselves
+in a cheerful room with soothing walls and comfortable chairs.  There
+will be books and magazines.  It will not be a library, for quantities
+of bookcases discourage the frivolous.  It will have no gilt chairs,
+because big men always want to sit in them.  It will have no lace
+curtains, because I hate them.  The piano will be there and most of our
+wedding-presents,--all which lend themselves to the decoration of a
+room which will look as if people lived in it."
+
+"If you put bric-a-brac in it people will call it a parlour in spite of
+you," said the Angel.
+
+"Not at all.  It will have one distinguishing feature which will
+effectually prevent the discriminating from making that mistake.  I
+intend to make the clock on the mantel _go_.  That will settle matters."
+
+"Of course."
+
+"This room will lack the stiffness of a drawing-room and so invite
+conversation, yet will be sufficiently dignified to prevent
+familiarity.  I shall endeavour to invest it with an invitation which
+will practically say to your college friends, 'You may smoke here, but
+you may not throw ashes on the floor.'  Do you see my point?"
+
+The Angel looked thoughtful.
+
+"I hope it will work," he said.
+
+"We can but try it.  I am doing this because I wish our friends to meet
+us together, and I don't approve of this separating men and women,--the
+women remaining alone to gossip while the men go away to smoke.  It is
+too narrowing on us and too broadening on you."
+
+"I like it,--in theory,--but some men are chimneys.  They don't know
+how to smoke when ladies are present."
+
+"They will soon learn!" I declared, stoutly.  "I shall be so attentive
+to their comfort, so ready with an ash-tray, so eager to offer them the
+last cigar in the jar (if I think they have smoked enough) that they
+will notice my slightest cough."
+
+Aubrey waxed enthusiastic.
+
+"An evening spent in that room will be 'An Education in Polite
+Smoking,' won't it?"
+
+"And," I went on, "then when we are rich and want a truly handsome
+drawingroom we can furnish it in pink silk and cupids with a light
+heart, for behold, we will simply move all this comfort I have
+described into a library, and the wear on the furniture will redeem it
+from newness and give it the proper air of age and use.  There is
+nothing more vulgar to my mind than a perfectly new library.  It
+looks--well, you know!"
+
+"It does," said the Angel, with conviction.  "All of that!"
+
+We discussed these theories in detail, made many corrections, and
+finally went down to buy.  But a handsome shop and money in my pocket
+always excite me so that what little common sense I was born with
+instantly departs, and I buy feverishly, mostly things I do not want
+and could not use.  So the Angel adopted a good, safe rule.  When he
+saw my eyes begin to glitter with a "I-must-have-that-or-die"
+expression, he used to take me by the arm and say:
+
+"Now shut your eyes, and I'll get you past this counter."
+
+I have heard of many curious women who do not enjoy housekeeping.  I am
+free to confess that I do not understand why, unless they started out
+in life with the conceited idea that to bend their wonderful brains
+upon the silly problem of keeping a house clean and ordering dinners
+was beneath women of their possibilities on club essays.  I often
+wonder if they attacked the proposition of housekeeping with the
+intention of seeing how much fun there is in it, of how much pleasure
+could be got out of making a home, not merely keeping house, and of
+feeding their conceit with the fuel of a determination to keep house
+better than any woman of their acquaintance.  The simple but
+fascinating problem of how to make each room a little prettier than it
+was last week, would keep even an ingenious woman busy and interested
+in something worth while, and those of us who are sensitive to
+impressions would be spared the truly awful sight of certain
+incongruous rooms in handsome houses.  Oh, if you only knew what people
+say about you--you women who "don't like to keep house!"
+
+But I forgot.  Most women have no sense of humour, and few husbands
+take the intense interest in a home that the Angel does.
+
+America, foreigners claim, is a country almost as homeless as France is
+said to be.  The French have no word for home in their language, but
+they have homes in fact, which is much more worth while.  We Americans
+have the lovely word "Home," but we haven't as a nation the article in
+fact.  Americans have houses, but in truth we are a homeless race.
+Only the unenlightened will contradict me for saying that, and for the
+opinion of the unenlightened I do not care.
+
+I am not sentimental after the fashion of women who send flowers to
+murderers, but I am full of pale and sickly theories as to the making
+of a home, and I am free to confess that it would give me more pleasure
+to hear people say of me, "Mrs. Jardine's husband is the happiest man I
+know," than to have them read on a bronze tablet under a statue in the
+Louvre, "Faith Jardine, Sculptor."  For if more ambitious women would
+devote themselves to making one neglected husband happy the public
+would be spared weak and indifferent pictures, silly and rank books,
+rainy-day skirts in the house, and heaps of other foolishness and bad
+taste, most of which at bottom is not the necessity to work for a
+living, but simply Feminine Conceit.
+
+Of course Aubrey and I made some mistakes in spite of all our
+precautions, for, happily for me, the Angel can be led away by
+enthusiasm, and is not so faultlessly perfect as to be impossible to
+get on with.  I revel in his weaknesses, they are so human and
+companionable, and give me such a feeling of satisfaction when summing
+up my own faults.  We got so much fun out of shopping for the house
+that we dragged out the process to make the delight of it as lingering
+as possible.  I had planned it all out.
+
+My own room was to be pink.  Big pink roses splashed all over the
+cretonne counterpane and valance of the bed.  Plain pink wall-paper
+upon which to hang pictures all in black frames.  Small pink roses
+tumbling on the ceiling and looking as if every moment they would
+scatter their curling petals on the pink rugs on the floor.  The dark
+furniture against the pink walls toned down the rose colour, which
+returned the compliment to the furniture by bringing out the carving on
+bold relief.
+
+The guest-room, on the contrary, was to be pale blue with white
+furniture.  Nothing but gold-framed pictures on the walls and a blue
+rug on the floor.  The chairs were to be upholstered in blue for this
+room, and in pink for mine.  Muslin curtains with full deep ruffles,
+picked out respectively with pink and blue, would flutter at the sunny
+windows, and though simplicity itself, nothing ever struck me as any
+more attractive, for it was all mine--my first house--my first
+housekeeping!  When this dream really came true, I walked around in
+such a dazed condition of delight that I was black and blue from
+knocking myself into things I didn't see.  But even as I did not see
+the obstructions, I did not feel the pain of my bruises, for they were
+all got from my furniture on corners of _my_ house, and thus were
+sacred.
+
+As I gazed on the delicate beauty of my pretty little guest-chamber I
+fell to wondering who would be its first occupant.  Would it be a man
+or a woman?  Would it be Artie Beguelin, the Angel's best man, or my
+sweet friend and bridesmaid, Cary Farquhar?
+
+At any rate, he or she would be welcome--oh, so welcome!  I hoped the
+invisible guest would be happy, and would feel that ours was not a
+compulsory hospitality, with the cost counted beforehand and the
+benefits we expected in return discounted.  No, whoever it was to be
+would be a guest and a friend.  On the wall over the bed hung these
+words illuminated on vellum and framed, for I had always loved them:
+
+  "Sleep sweet, within this quiet room,
+    Oh thou, whoe'er thou art!
+  And let no mournful yesterday
+    Disturb thy peaceful heart,
+  Nor let to-morrow fret thy dreams
+    With thoughts of coming ill,
+  Thy Maker is thy changeless Friend,
+    His love surrounds thee still.
+        Sleep sweet!
+        Good night."
+
+
+Afterward, when my first guest had come and gone, this momentary
+reverie came back to me, and I looked up at this benediction with tears
+in my eyes.
+
+Of course we spent too much money on our house furnishings.  We always
+do, but after all--and here come my theories again.  I would have fine
+table and bed linen.  The Angel did not believe I would stick to it,
+but I did embroider it all myself.  And as to hemming napkins and
+table-cloths--I challenge any nun in any convent to make prettier
+French hems than I put in!  Would I be likely to waste all that labour
+on flimsy napkins or cotton sheets and pillow-cases?
+
+Not at all!  I can find infinitely more pleasure in putting invisible
+stitches into my own first linen than in going to pink teas, and people
+don't get permanently angry if you invite them to dinner, and let them
+eat off hemmed and embroidered damask.  Believe me.  You may send cards
+to six receptions, and get out of six afternoons of misery and
+indigestion by one judiciously arranged dinner--if you don't mix your
+people.  And thus we did.
+
+So I got my linen.  The Angel laughed at another of my theories, but
+when I proved to him that I would really see the thing through, he was
+convinced.  It was on the question of beds.  Our friends professed
+themselves astonished that we contemplated the extravagance of a
+guest-chamber, for here in New York, where rents are so abnormal,
+people economize first of all upon their friends, and I am told that an
+extra bedroom where a chance guest may be asked to remain overnight is
+the exception with people of moderate means.  Such monstrous
+selfishness struck me as appalling.  To provide _only_ for
+ourselves--for our own comfort!  To have no room in all your own luxury
+to share with a friend!  To be obliged to tell the woman whose
+hospitality you have enjoyed in your girlhood: "Now that I am married,
+I have prepared no place for you!  Your kindness to me is all
+forgotten!"
+
+Well, we simply refused.  What if it were a strain on us financially?
+I would rather suffer that than cripple myself spiritually and suffer
+from no pangs of conscience as most New Yorkers do!
+
+However, we managed it, and in this wise.  I said:
+
+"Aubrey, if you are willing, we can save a great deal in this way."
+
+Even at this early stage the Angel always grew deeply attentive when I
+talked of saving anything.
+
+"We can and must order the finest springs and mattresses for the beds,
+for of all the meanness in this world the meanest is to put a bad bed
+in the guest-chamber, and that is where most housekeepers are perfectly
+willing to economize.  But we can and will buy white iron beds with
+brass trimmings for almost nothing,--they are all the same size as the
+fine brass ones,--so that at any time when we find ourselves vulgarly
+rich and able to live up to the dinner-table we shall feel perfectly
+justified in discarding them, and there you are!"
+
+"But how will it look?" said the man.
+
+"How will our bank-account look, if we don't?"
+
+"I know.  But I thought women were afraid of what other women would
+say," said the Angel.
+
+"Now, Aubrey," I said, "If we have economized on ourselves, or rather
+included ourselves in a general scheme of economy in order the better
+to provide for our guests, I think even New Yorkers would hesitate to
+criticize the Jardines' iron beds,--especially if they ever got a
+chance to disport themselves on the Jardines' Turkish springs!"
+
+"There's something in that," said the Angel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+ON THE SUBJECT OF JANITORS
+
+I used to pride myself on being practical and on possessing no small
+degree of that peculiar brand of sense known as "horse."  However, like
+most women inclined to take a rosy view of their virtues and to pass
+lightly over their obvious faults, I know now that I prided myself on
+the one thing in my make-up conspicuous by its absence.  For I am
+luxurious to a degree, and so fond of beauty and grace that I feel with
+the man who said, "Give me the luxuries of life and I will do without
+the necessities."
+
+This explanation is due to any man, woman, or child who has ever lived
+in a New York apartment, and who is moved to follow the fortunes of the
+Jardines further.  Also this conversation took place before some of the
+events already narrated transpired, and while we were still at the
+Waldorf.
+
+"Now, Aubrey," I said, "to begin at the beginning, marriage is supposed
+to perfect existence all around, isn't it?"
+
+"It does," said Aubrey.
+
+"No, now, I am speaking seriously.  It has fed the mental and spiritual
+side of us, why not begin life with the determination to make it oil
+the wheels of daily existence?  Why not bend our energies to avoiding
+the pitfalls of the ordinary mortal, and let _us_ lead a perfect life."
+
+"Very well," said the Angel.
+
+"Now in permitting housekeeping to conquer, most people become slaves
+to the small ills of life, which I wish to avoid."
+
+"Get to the point," said Aubrey, encouragingly, fearing, I suppose,
+that if he did not give the conversation a fillip, I might go on in
+that strain for ever, which would be wearing.
+
+"Well, the point is this.  I've never known what it was to have good
+service in a private house, except abroad.  Now even when people bring
+excellent servants over from London and Paris, they go all to pieces in
+a year.  It's in the air of America."
+
+"Well?" said Aubrey.
+
+"Well, of course we have perfect service here in this hotel, and it
+seems to me that the nearest approach to that would be in one of those
+smart apartment-houses, where everything is done for you outside of
+your four walls.  Then with Mary, who seems to be a delightful
+creature, all we need do is to be careful in the selection of a
+janitor.  Do you follow me?"
+
+"You have not finished," said Solomon.
+
+"Quite true, oh, wise man of the East!  Another of the trials of my
+life has always been to get letters mailed."
+
+"To get letters _mailed_?" said Aubrey.
+
+"To get letters mailed," I repeated, firmly.  "Every woman knows that
+it is no trouble to write them, but the problem of leaving them on the
+hall-table for the first person who goes out to mail, the lingering
+fear when one doesn't hear promptly that the letter was lost or never
+went; the danger of somebody covering them up with papers and sweeping
+them off to be burned; the impossibility of running to the box with
+each one; the impoliteness of refusing the friend who offers to mail
+them permission even to touch them,--oh, Aubrey, really, the chief
+worry of my whole life has been to get letters mailed!"
+
+"The most expensive apartment we looked at had a mail-chute," said my
+husband, thoughtfully, after a moment of silence.
+
+"Well," I hazarded, timidly, "the only difference between a flat and an
+apartment is in the rent."
+
+"That apartment had an ice-box and a sideboard built in, and a mail
+chute," repeated Aubrey.
+
+"Yes, it did, as well as the most respectful janitor I ever saw.  Did
+you notice him?"
+
+"Was he the one who was cross-eyed?"
+
+"Well, yes, I think his eyes weren't quite straight.  But that may have
+been one reason why he was so gentle and deferential.  I have often
+noticed that persons who are afflicted in some painful way are often
+the very kindest and best, as if the spiritual had developed at the
+expense of the physical."
+
+"Well, Faith, if your heart is set on that one we must have it."
+
+"I know the rent is exorbitant, but I intend to get all of my amusement
+and recreation out of my home, so count balls and receptions and
+functions out--or rather count them in the rent," I said, "for instead
+of going to the theatre as we have been doing, I want to give little
+dinners--real dinners to people we love, and give them with a view to
+the enjoyment of our guests rather than that of ourselves.  I want to
+make a fine art of the selection of guests in their relation to each
+other."
+
+"I'd like nothing better," declared Aubrey, "but don't you know that
+you won't be called upon to do much of that sort of thing the first
+winter, for everybody we know will be entertaining us."
+
+"There's one other point I'd like to explain," I said.  "And that is
+that I shall never entertain anybody whom I simply 'feel called upon'
+to entertain, nor, if I like people, shall I count favours with them.
+I shall conform to conventionality simply as a matter of dignity.  It
+is the privilege of your friends to make the first advances to me
+because I am a stranger to most of them.  But I want to make a practice
+of hospitality for my own sake.  I want to see if the open house we
+kept in the South cannot be accomplished in New York.  I never, for the
+good of my own soul, want to grow as cold and calculating as some
+so-called hospitable women whom I have met in the North."
+
+Aubrey looked at me comprehendingly.
+
+"I know," I said, smiling, "that it sounds to a hardened New Yorker
+like yourself about like the interview of a young actress who declares
+that she intends to elevate the stage.  But in my case, I am in the
+position of one who doesn't want the stage to lower her.  I don't want
+to grow cold, Aubrey, and I hope never to allow a friend to leave my
+house at meal-time without at least an invitation to remain and make,
+if necessary, a convenience of us.  What are friends for, I should like
+to know?"
+
+"From the position you have just stated I should think your definition
+of a friend would be 'a man or woman who can be imposed upon with
+impunity.'"
+
+"Let them impose upon me if they want to," I declared, stoutly.  "As
+long as I have respectful service, I will let those I love make a
+door-mat of me!"
+
+"A slightly volcanic door-mat, I should say," observed the Angel.  "You
+would allow yourself to be stamped upon just about as humbly as a
+charge of dynamite, and the remonstrance in both cases would be
+similar."
+
+I could not help remembering this conversation after we had moved in
+and we had been settled by the efforts of the family of the cross-eyed
+janitor.
+
+I never enjoyed anything in my life as I enjoyed moving into our first
+home.  It was on the top floor, overlooking the park from the front
+windows, while the back gave upon a stretch of neat little flower
+gardens with the Hudson shining like a narrow silver ribbon between us
+and the undulating Jersey shore.
+
+Every room was light.  Every room opened on the street, and the
+sunlight came pouring in quite as if it did not know that in most
+apartments the sun is an unexpected luxury.  There were parquet floors
+throughout, and the bathroom was white marble, all except a narrow
+frieze of cool pale green.  The woodwork was daintily carved, the
+dining-room was panelled in oak with two handsome china-closets built
+in.  We had eleven closets with an extra storeroom for trunks in the
+basement, and enough cabinets in the kitchen and butler's pantry to
+stock a hotel, and as a crowning glory the front door did not open
+opposite the bathroom or kitchen as is the case in most apartments, but
+was near the front like the home of a Christian, and the dining-room
+gave into the front room with a largeness of vista which made us feel
+like millionaires.
+
+Does this read like a fairy-tale?
+
+As we surveyed our domain, I felt such a flood of gratitude and pride
+of home sweep over my soul that I said to Aubrey:
+
+"I actually feel like praying."
+
+The Angel smiled an inscrutable smile, the exact meaning of which I did
+not catch, but it was not one of derision.  Rather I should say that it
+had in it a waiting quality, as of a knowing one who intended to give
+thanks after he had tested a meal, instead of a reckless wight who in
+faith called down a blessing on a napkin and salt-cellars.  But my
+gratitude was largely "a lively appreciation of favours to come."
+
+I have no tale of woe to relate of things which did not come in time.
+Our purchases promised for a certain day arrived as scheduled, were
+uncrated on the sidewalk, with Aubrey and me hanging out of the sixth
+floor window to watch them.  The gentle-mannered janitor and his buxom
+daughter were cleaning the last of the windows, and such was the genius
+of fortune and Mary that at three that same afternoon, when the best
+man called to see how we were getting on, there was nothing left to do
+but to hang pictures, so we set him to doing that while we sat around
+in languid delight and bossed the job.  But it was thirsty work, and
+the best man rested often.  Such perfection of planning seemed to
+irritate him, although he is by nature a gentle soul, for he said, "I
+must say you have done well, but I'll bet there is one thing you have
+forgotten."
+
+"Not at all," said Aubrey, who was at college with the best man.
+"There are six siphons on the ice now, and six more under the kitchen
+sink.  The corkscrew is on the mantel."
+
+All the pictures were hung before dinner.  That is, they were hung for
+the first time.  The pictures in our apartment have travelled.  One by
+one they have journeyed from the smoking-room down the long hall,
+stopping a day or two in each room, and all finding a resting-place
+except one, which will not look well in any colour, any spot, on any
+wall, nor in any light.  It was a wedding-present from some one we
+like, or Aubrey would have put his foot through it long ago.  As it is,
+it is under the blue room bed, whence we drag it every once in awhile
+to admire the frame and say, "I wonder if it wouldn't go there."
+
+As long as that picture remains unhung, a vacant wall space in any
+house is full of interest and possibility to us, and if we ever move,
+we shall select a spot for that picture first, and consider the rent
+and plumbing second.
+
+The janitor's manners continued perfect.  Even Mary found no fault with
+him, and as my appreciation for anything is plainly evident in my
+manner, both Mary and the janitor felt that in me they had found a
+friend, and they waxed confidential withal.
+
+One day he came up to clean windows, and when he mentioned the
+"parlour," I said:
+
+"Don't call this room a parlour.  I have neither parlour nor
+drawing-room.  This small room is a smoking-room, and this other is a
+library.  I wanted Mr. Jardine to feel at liberty to smoke all over the
+house."
+
+The janitor looked about him and noticed the lack of gilt chairs and
+lace curtains.
+
+"Will you excuse an old man for speaking, Mrs. Jardine, and not think
+me impertinent if I make free to say that if more young ladies started
+housekeeping with such ideas, homes would be happier.  I make bold to
+say that you will not have trouble in keeping Mr. Jardine at home
+evenings."
+
+I blushed with pleasure at having won the approval of this gentle soul.
+But when I told Aubrey he said:
+
+"Poor old fellow!  I saw his wife to-day.  She weighs well on to four
+hundred, and has the air of an anarchist queen.  She was engaged in
+reducing the agent to his proper level, and _I_ fled."
+
+Evidently the agent conquered, for, alas! within a week we had a new
+janitor,--the opposite of my friend in every respect.  Harris, the new
+janitor, was young, sprightly, self-confident, and an American of the
+type "I'm just as good as you are."  This challenge lay so plainly in
+his eye that almost involuntarily I said, "I know you are," before I
+told him that the elevator squeaked.
+
+I hated him from the moment I saw him, but I gave him an extra large
+fee to bribe, in the cowardly manner of all citizens of the land of the
+free and the home of the brave, a servant to do pleasantly the duties
+he is otherwise paid to do.  He had three little children, and when one
+of them had a birthday I sent them ice-cream and a birthday cake.  When
+his wife fell ill I sent her my own doctor, for her little pale,
+pinched, three-cornered face appealed to me.  She did all the janitor's
+work.  It was her voice at the dumb-waiter instead of his, and once
+Aubrey found her emptying a garbage can nearly as large as she was,
+when he went down to see why Harris didn't answer our bell.  Aubrey
+found Harris asleep.
+
+We discovered these things by degrees, and gradually I came to feel
+that my mail-chute was the only real, continuous luxury we had gained
+with this awful rent.  Still we avoided discussing the matter.  By
+ignoring it, we could keep ourselves deceived a little longer to the
+fact that we were being robbed by our own foolishness.
+
+One day I invited the dearest old lady, over ninety years old, to
+luncheon.  Her daughter was to bring her in her carriage, and I made
+Aubrey promise to be in the house by eleven o'clock in case she needed
+assistance, and I prepared to have a beautiful day.  For weeks we had
+planned for this festival, for it was Mrs. Scofield's ninety-first
+birthday and would probably be her only outing during the winter.  At
+ten o'clock I had word that she felt well enough to come, so I told
+Aubrey to bring over the ninety-one roses he had ordered in honour of
+her birthday.
+
+He came in looking a florist shop.  We arranged them, and waited and
+waited and waited.  At two o'clock, the most disappointed of mortals,
+we sat down to luncheon.
+
+"I am afraid something has happened," I said, and the anxiety and
+disappointment threw me into such a headache that I spent the afternoon
+in a darkened room, and had tea and toast sent in for my dinner.
+
+About eight o'clock Aubrey persuaded me to go out for a little walk, so
+we started.  We had no sooner got outside our door than we began to
+feel impending calamity in the air.  The elevator was not running.
+There was a paper saying so fastened to the bell.  We walked down five
+flights of stairs, occasionally looking at each other ominously.  My
+headache vanished as if by magic.  I felt strong and murderous.
+
+On the table in the hall lay a dozen letters, which had arrived during
+the day, a telegram from Uncle John, asking us to dine at the Waldorf
+and share their box to see Irving and Terry and to sup with them at
+Sherry's that night.  It was then a quarter to nine.  We were not
+dressed, and we were half an hour from the theatre.  There was also a
+note from Mrs. Scofield's daughter saying that they had come at
+half-past twelve, but found no hall-boy, no janitor, and the elevator
+not running, so, after vainly trying to communicate with us, they had
+been obliged to go home again.
+
+I simply wept with rage and mortification.  Aubrey started for the
+basement with me at his heels.  I felt that the Angel could not cope
+alone with such a situation.  We found Mrs. Harris pale, trembling, and
+apologetic.  She said her husband was not there.
+
+Aubrey turned away breathing vengeance.
+
+"Aubrey," I said, firmly, "Harris is in that room."
+
+"No, no, Mrs. Jardine!  Indeed he is not!" insisted the little woman.
+
+"I am sorry for you, Mrs. Harris," I said, "but you must allow me to
+see for myself."  And with that I made as if to pass her, but Aubrey
+held me back.
+
+"I'll go," he said.
+
+He went and found Harris calmly reading the newspaper, with his feet on
+the mantel.
+
+"Why isn't the elevator running?" demanded Aubrey.
+
+"Because the hall-boy left this morning, and there was nobody to run
+it," said the man, impudently keeping his seat, with his hat on, and
+not even putting his feet on the floor.
+
+"Is it broken?" asked my husband.
+
+"It is not.  I turned the power off, that's all."
+
+"Why didn't you run it yourself?" asked Aubrey.
+
+"It isn't my business.  That's why, young feller.  Now you know, don't
+you!"
+
+"Don't you dare speak to my husband in that manner," I broke in.
+Aubrey shook his head at me.  It was cruel of him, for I do love a
+fight.
+
+"You come out this minute and start that elevator," said Aubrey.
+
+"I'll do nothing of the sort.  You'll walk up those five nights of
+stairs this night," said the janitor.  Oh, how I wished I had that fee
+back!
+
+Mrs. Harris plucked imploringly at my skirt.
+
+"Harris, aren't you ashamed of yourself?" I said.  "Look at your poor
+wife just out of bed, and you have lost this good place by this day's
+work.  You and your family will not know where to lay your heads within
+a week."
+
+"And how do you know that?  I'll keep this place as long as I please.
+_I_ stand in with the agent.  I suppose you think because you've been
+good to the children that you can run me, but let me tell you that
+you've not done half that you should!  So you just shut up and go back
+where you belong."
+
+Aubrey made a leap for him, but Mrs. Harris threw herself between them
+and I fastened myself to Aubrey's coat-tails.  This was more than I had
+bargained for.
+
+"No, Aubrey, come.  Let us once for all declare our independence.  For
+some time I have suspected that there was collusion between janitors
+and agents.  Now let's get to the bottom of it."
+
+By holding out such a prospect to him, I got the Angel up-stairs, where
+we poured forth our souls in a letter to the agent.
+
+He called, listened to us with polite incredulity, and said he would
+hear Harris's side, as if he wished to judge impartially between two
+criminals.
+
+We held on to ourselves while he consulted the gentleman below stairs.
+When he came back he said:
+
+"Harris denies everything.  Now who am I to believe?"
+
+For once the Angel rose to the occasion.
+
+"Mr. Jepson, you may believe whom you please if you have no more
+decency than to put the word of a gentleman against that of a drunken
+servant.  You have violated the terms of our lease, and unless Harris
+is dismissed inside of a week our apartment is at your disposal."
+
+"Very well, Mr. Jardine," said Jepson, "if you insist on our dismissing
+a janitor for his first offence without even giving him a second
+chance, then there is nothing to do but to agree to your demand."
+
+Aubrey bowed in a truly haughty manner.  The Angel!
+
+"I so insist," he said.  The agent left us.
+
+"Aubrey," I said, thoughtfully, "we have gained a gallant victory over
+the janitor, but I fear the battle with the agent will be the bloodiest
+of our campaign."
+
+But we looked forward hopefully.  Like all man-eating monsters, having
+once tasted human blood, we thirsted for more.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE ANGEL AND THE AGENT
+
+At the risk of causing the gentle reader to despise us, I feel in duty
+bound to set forth the joys and sorrows of our first housekeeping about
+as they occurred.  By that I mean that I intend to take the keen edge
+from our griefs for kindness' sake and to illuminate our joys a little
+beyond the stern realities as we found them, in order to permit the
+reader to understand the colour of the Paradise that the Angel and I
+found in each other.  If, therefore, I do not burst into tears at the
+moment when any well-regulated woman would, lay it, O gentle reader, at
+the door of the Angel, whose deep-seeing understanding not only could
+comprehend such a grief as that of parting with my dog, but which also
+was capable of sympathizing with suitable violence over a gown which did
+not fit or the polite malice of an afternoon visitor.
+
+If I add that when I went into a fury over nothing at all the Angel never
+attempted to stop me or to pooh-pooh the cause, but permitted me to
+mangle the whole subject until it lay a disorganized, dismembered, wholly
+unrecognizable mass at my triumphant feet, I feel reasonably sure that I
+shall have proved to every woman his right to his title.
+
+The knowing ones will naturally scorn the method of reasoning by which we
+arrived at conclusions, but I have found that nothing is more diverting
+or delightful than to go blundering into absurd predicaments, mentally
+hand in hand, for the Angel never says "I told you so."  That sting being
+removed and all three in this happy family, Mary, the Angel, and I, all
+being rather handsomely endowed with a sense of humour, it is a constant
+source of enjoyment to look back and consider the virulence and contagion
+of our ignorance and to count the bruises by which we became wise.
+
+One evening at ten o'clock we came in from making a call and found the
+elevator-boy in his shirt-sleeves washing the hall floor.  I asked him if
+it wasn't a little early to be doing such a thing, as people were still
+going and coming, and he said he was acting under Mr. Jepson's orders.
+Jepson was the agent.
+
+We said we would remonstrate, and we wrote a letter to Jepson asking him
+to have the hall cleaned after twelve o'clock at night and before six
+o'clock in the morning.  He wrote back that, after consulting the
+convenience of all the people in the house, he had decided on eight in
+the morning and ten at night, as everybody was at breakfast at the first
+hour and that ten was the freest hour for the halls at night.  He added
+that the gentleman on the first floor went fishing at six every morning,
+and had complained of having the halls washed at that hour, as he was
+inconvenienced thereby.
+
+A few days later we met Jepson on the street, and Aubrey stopped him and
+said:
+
+"There are several matters about the house I wish you would look into,
+Mr. Jepson."
+
+"Now look here, Mr. Jardine, if you expect me to run that whole
+apartment-house to suit you, you are going to be mistaken."
+
+"For whose comfort and convenience is it run?" I broke in before Aubrey
+could stop me.
+
+"For mine, madam!  I arrange everything outside of your four walls."
+
+"Then we have no rights as to entrance, elevator, and our upper hall?"
+asked Aubrey.
+
+"None, sir!"
+
+I pulled the Angel away.
+
+"Now, Aubrey," I said, "_I_ have had an apartment in Paris, and I know
+what the power of the concierge is.  But if you think for one minute that
+I am going to submit to such impertinence here in America, you never were
+more mistaken in your life."
+
+"What do you intend to do?" asked my husband, with the very natural and
+perfectly excusable interest a man takes when he sees his wife donning
+her war-paint.
+
+"The trouble with me is that I am too agreeable," I went on, firmly.  The
+Angel never flinched even at that statement.  "I am too polite.  We ask
+for our rights as if we were requesting favours."
+
+"Is it our right to say when the halls shall be cleaned?" asked Aubrey.
+
+"Well, I leave it to you as a business man.  There is a difference of
+eight hundred dollars a year in the rent between the first floor and
+ours.  If we pay the highest rent shouldn't our wishes be considered
+first?"
+
+"Eight hundred dollars' worth first!" agreed Aubrey.
+
+"Well, now I'll tell you what I think we would better do, and see if you
+don't agree with me.  To tell the truth, I am getting a little sick of
+the tyranny of agents and janitors, and I propose to see if by making a
+firm stand we cannot establish a precedent for the rights of tenants."
+
+"Don't go to law," said Aubrey, "for every law in New York State seems to
+favour agents and janitors.  I've conducted too many cases not to know."
+
+"We won't go to law.  We will use common sense.  It vexes me to hear
+everybody telling what abuses they stand in New York apartments, and not
+one of them has the courage to make a fight for liberty.  An Englishman
+wouldn't stand it for one minute, but we Americans are cowards about
+'scenes' and 'fusses' and such things, and year by year our rights are
+passing from our hands into the hands of foreigners and the lower
+classes, who already rule us because they don't mind a fight."
+
+"True," said Aubrey.
+
+Much flattered by his approval, I proceeded more calmly.  It always puts
+me in a heavenly temper not to be opposed.
+
+"Now we will give this Jepson person one more chance.  If he abuses his
+authority or tramples on even the fringe of our rights, we will revolt."
+
+"Good!" cried Aubrey, perfectly willing to become enthusiastic over an
+encounter not in the immediate future.  But his peaceful disposition once
+roused, and my inflammable nature crawls into the darkest corner under
+the bed to escape the sight of the consequences.
+
+It came to be the first week in October without anything more irritating
+happening than that all our protests had been disregarded, and we picked
+our way through sloppy halls and dismissed our guests with forced jests
+about bathing suits being furnished by the agent for them to reach the
+street door in safety, and all such things, keeping up a proud front, but
+secretly mortified almost to death, for anybody would know from our
+location that we were paying a high rent, and then to think--
+
+However--
+
+On this early October morning we found frost on the windows, and,
+although we had no thermometer, we knew that we were cold.  We hurried
+out into the dining-room and lighted the gas-logs.  They were new, and
+inside of five minutes we had every window in the house open and
+handkerchiefs to our noses.  We said we would stand it and burn the new
+off, but we have lived here two years and the new is still on.  So then
+we said we must have heat.  This was before Janitor Harris left, so
+Aubrey, after ringing in vain for half an hour, went down and told him to
+make a fire in the furnaces.  Harris said we were to have no heat until
+the fifteenth of November.  It was a rule of all apartment-houses.
+Aubrey said, "Nonsense!"  But when he came up-stairs Mary confirmed the
+janitor.  She said it was a rule in New York.
+
+We said nothing, but we felt that this was the time for our declaration
+of independence.
+
+First we bought thermometers for every room.
+
+Then Aubrey looked up the law.
+
+In all the bedrooms the mercury stayed at forty-nine until noon, then it
+got to fifty-one.  At seven that night it dropped to forty-five, and in
+the morning all the windows were frosted again.
+
+Aubrey's law partner was extremely interested in all our plans, for he
+also lived in an apartment and wanted heat, but knew better than to ask
+for it.  Our lease was so worded that we were to have "heat when
+necessary."  Our rights hung upon when the agent, who was five miles
+away, or the owner, who was in Florida, should agree upon how cold we
+were to be allowed to grow before thawing us out.  Then, carefully
+planning the campaign, Aubrey wrote letters and had interviews with the
+agent, in which he committed himself in the presence of witnesses and on
+paper until, on the afternoon of the third day of our cold storage,
+Aubrey wrote to the agent saying that if we did not have heat within
+twenty-four hours, we should go to a hotel and stay until they chose to
+give it to us, and take it out of the rent.  This letter evidently
+tickled one of the clerks in the agent's office to such an extent that he
+called Aubrey up by telephone and said he had done the only thing
+possible under the circumstances to bring the company to book.  This
+approval pleased Aubrey, and he asked the man's name.  It was Brooks.
+
+We all felt that Brooks was a gentleman.
+
+"They will _never_ let us do _that_, Aubrey," I said.
+
+"They will think we are bluffing!" said the Angel, with quiet conviction.
+
+"Bluffing!" I cried.  "Do they think we won't go if they don't give us
+heat?"
+
+"They little know _you_, do they?" said Aubrey, patting the sleeve of my
+sealskin, for I wore it all day now.  I put it on when I got up.
+
+We waited the twenty-four hours, and then as no notice had been taken of
+our letter we calmly packed a handbag, bade Mary good-bye,--she had the
+gas range to keep warm by,--and much to her delight we went down to the
+Waldorf.  But not to our old luxurious quarters.  We took a room and a
+bath at five dollars a day.  We were doing this from stern principle, and
+we wanted a reasonable case.
+
+I have never flattered myself privately that I am a particularly
+agreeable woman, but I can truthfully say that we were extremely popular
+at the Waldorf, for in some manner it had leaked out that we were making
+a test case on the "heat before the 15th," and everybody we knew who
+lived in apartments called to see if we were really there, and some who
+didn't know us sent word to us or walked by to look at us, as if we were
+performing animals.  The name of Jardine was paged through the corridors
+and billiard-room and cafe until we had a personal acquaintance with
+every menial in the hotel.  It cost us a good deal to get away, I
+remember.
+
+All these first-mentioned nice persons encouraged us, and slapped Aubrey
+on the back and called him "old chap," much to his annoyance (for the
+Angel hates familiarity from chance acquaintances), and said we were
+doing the right thing and God-blessed-us and wanted us to promise to let
+them know how we came out.
+
+We said nothing, but we could see that not one among them all but
+expected either a lawsuit or that we would be obliged to back down and
+pay for this foolhardy defiance of the despot out of our own pockets.
+
+Each day we went out to the apartment and examined the thermometers and
+took signed statements as to the degree they registered.  We had notified
+the agent that we would not return until it was sixty-eight Fahrenheit in
+the bedrooms.
+
+On the afternoon of the third day the weather had moderated to such an
+extent that it was sixty-eight, so I stayed while Aubrey went down to the
+Waldorf for the bill and our bag.  On his return he proudly exhibited a
+receipted bill for $27.
+
+As no reply had been received to our letter and no one had been sent to
+see us, we felt a truly justifiable pride in the little surprise we had
+for Jepson when on the first of November the Angel sent a cheque for
+November rent, less $27, together with the now famous receipted bill.
+
+If we felt that we had been ignored by our agent hitherto, we had no
+cause for complaint after the receipt of that bill and cheque.  In fact,
+as I told Aubrey, Jepson did not have time to use a paper-knife on the
+envelope,--he must have torn it open with feverish fingers,--for the
+telephone-bell jingled madly before breakfast when the office "wanted to
+know the meaning of this," and when the Angel rang off without any reply,
+poor old Jepson came up to the apartment out of breath.
+
+We got plenty of attention after _that_!
+
+Jepson was at first quite confident--even patronizing.
+
+"Why, don't you know, Mr. Jardine, we can't allow any such absurd thing
+as this to go on--not for a minute."
+
+"Ah," said Aubrey.  "What do you propose to do about it?"
+
+"I propose to leave this--this--er--bill and cheque with you and collect
+the full amount of the rent."
+
+"I don't envy you the process," said my husband.
+
+"Oh, well, I imagine there will be no trouble about it.  We know our
+rights."
+
+"Has it ever occurred to you that we might know ours?" said Aubrey.
+
+"Yes, certainly.  But you know, Mr. Jardine, we are agents for a large
+number of the best apartment-houses in New York, and we have not given
+heat to any one so far."
+
+"I only live in this one," said Aubrey.  "It does not interest me in the
+least what temperature other of your tenants prefer.  I shall have this
+apartment warm when _I_ think it is cold."
+
+"Well, but--I understand how you feel, but--no one ever did such a thing
+as this before in the whole course of my thirty-five years' experience."
+
+"I can quite believe it," said Aubrey, thinking of the people we knew who
+suffered without a protest.
+
+"Then you can imagine my surprise this morning to receive this," said
+Jepson.
+
+"I can quite imagine it," returned my husband, with an irony wasted on
+Jepson, but delightful to me.
+
+"Well," said our visitor, rising, "I hope you will think better of it and
+send me a cheque for the full amount.  It will save unpleasantness."
+
+"I anticipate unpleasantness from my past experience with you," said the
+Angel, "and that is every cent you will get from me for November rent."
+
+"Then we shall sue you, Mr. Jardine.  Doubtless you would be embarrassed
+to be sued for twenty-seven dollars."
+
+"It wouldn't embarrass me to be sued for twenty-seven cents," said
+Aubrey, cheerfully, for he always expands in good nature when the other
+man shows signs of temper.
+
+"Do you expect us to sue?" asked the astonished agent.
+
+"Here is my defence," said Aubrey, pleasantly, drawing a bundle of law
+papers from his pocket.  "My partner and I have been at work on this case
+for a fortnight."
+
+Jepson sat down again suddenly and unwound his neck-scarf.  The Angel
+does look gentle.
+
+"I didn't think--" he began and stopped, but Aubrey helped him out.
+
+"You didn't think several things, Mr. Jepson.  You didn't think I meant
+it when I said I must have heat.  You didn't think I meant it when I
+wrote you that I would go to a hotel if you didn't give it to me.  You
+didn't think I would resent your paying no attention to our requests
+about cleaning the halls.  You didn't think I intended to live in this
+apartment to suit my own comfort and convenience and not yours.  You
+didn't think I could force you to live up to the terms of our lease,
+which says 'heat when necessary.'  But I intend to give you an
+opportunity right now to change your mind about several things."
+
+Jepson dropped his hat on the floor and fumbled for it.
+
+"I'll take the matter up with the president of our company," he said.
+
+"Do," said Aubrey, cordially.
+
+The next morning while Aubrey was down-town the president of the real
+estate company called.
+
+"Now, Mrs. Jardine," he said, "I just thought I would drop in while your
+husband was away to discuss this little difficulty in a friendly way and
+see if you and I couldn't come to some arrangement by which both parties
+will be satisfied."
+
+"Yes?" I said.
+
+"You see, Mrs. Jardine, you as a lady will realize that your husband took
+a very high-handed way,--in fact, I may say it was the most high-handed
+proceeding I have ever heard of in all my business career."
+
+"Yes?  I suppose it must have astonished you as much as it amazed us to
+discover that we were to be heated by date instead of by temperature."
+
+"Er--er well!  Of course, you didn't know, but you must understand that
+that rule obtains among all agents in New York."
+
+"So we heard," I said, indifferently.
+
+"You know that?"
+
+"Oh, certainly."
+
+"Did you know what method Mr. Jardine was about to pursue to force us to
+heat your apartment before any one else asked for heat?"
+
+"I suggested it to him," I said, gently.
+
+"You sug--Well, of course.  Hum!  I see."
+
+"And as for none of the other tenants wanting heat, every family in the
+house asked for it.  The lady on the third floor has a five-weeks-old
+baby, and, as you know, there are no gas-logs in any of the bedrooms."
+
+"Well," said the president, rising, "I must look into this.  I will take
+the matter up with the owners."
+
+"Good morning," I said.  "I will tell Mr. Jardine that you called."
+
+"Yes, do," he said, hurriedly putting on his hat, and then taking it off
+again.  "Good morning.  Mr. Jardine will hear from me."
+
+"I hope so," I said to myself as Mary closed the door.  "We never have
+before."
+
+The owners called next, singly and in couples.  We were delighted to meet
+them, for we were convinced that we never would have had the pleasure of
+their acquaintance under any other circumstances.
+
+After more interviews and letters than any $27 ever occasioned before, we
+finally received a letter stating that our claim had been allowed, and
+they enclosed a receipt in full for November's rent.
+
+Nobody believed us when we told them, and we nearly wore the letter out
+exhibiting it.  It is worn at the folding places now from much handling,
+like an autograph letter of Lincoln's or Washington's.
+
+During the following year a new firm of agents took possession of us, who
+knew us not, so that the next October, when we wanted heat, the same
+patronizing manner greeted the Angel when he telephoned for permission to
+have the janitor light the furnaces.
+
+"Oh, no.  Oh, no, Mr.--er--Really, we couldn't consider such a request,"
+came a voice.
+
+"Look here," said Aubrey.  "I am the man who went to the Waldorf last
+year when the agent refused us heat and took twenty-seven dollars out of
+the rent.  You may have heard of me."
+
+"What name, sir?  Oh, Jardine!  Yes, Mr. Jardine, you shall have heat
+within an hour."
+
+The next morning the janitor--also a new one by the way--told the Angel
+that he got a telephone message from the agent to start a fire in the
+furnace if he had to tear off wooden doors and burn them!
+
+"All of which goes to show," said Aubrey to me, "that somebody ought to
+write a book on 'The Value of the Kicker.'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+HOW WE TAMED THE COOK
+
+Second only to the skill required in managing a husband is the diplomacy
+necessary in the art of living with one's cook.  Therefore let the
+unmarried pass this over, feeling that the time for them to read it is
+not yet, but let those who have a cross-grained, crotchety, obstinate, or
+bad-tempered cook take this to a quiet corner and hear my tale.  While it
+may not be exactly your experience it cannot fail to touch a responsive
+chord, for whether you have already had a spoiled cook or not, rest
+assured that you will have one some day, and do not scorn to make her the
+subject of deep and earnest study and the object of diplomatic
+negotiations.
+
+In our case Mary was old and obstinate, but her virtues were too many to
+dismiss her without valiant efforts made to reform her in one or two
+particulars.  It is, alas! but too true, that perfection does not exist,
+especially in cooks.  But as even her failings leaned to virtue's side we
+bore and bore with her, making light of our inconveniences, and
+pretending not to notice that we could never make her do anything that
+she had not wanted to do beforehand.  It was a good deal of a strain on
+us sometimes, for we are self-respecting folk, with excellent opinions of
+ourselves.
+
+But among her good points was an absolute reverence for food.  She never
+wasted a mouthful, even saving the crusts she cut from the toast to grind
+for breading and doing all the thrifty things one would do oneself, but
+which no cook ever born is expected to do nowadays.  She had lived some
+years in Paris, for one thing, and for another,--"Missis, I always
+believe that them that wastes--wants.  I've seen it too many times to
+want to run the risk."
+
+Mary is a character, but this theory of hers she carried to an extreme,
+as you shall hear.
+
+Owing to our respect for Mary's white hairs, the dinner-hour was as
+changeable as a weathercock.  We dined anywhere from seven to nine, and
+soothed each other's irritation by calling ostentatious attention to the
+delicacy and perfection of each dish as it came on the table.  Why
+shouldn't each be perfect, forsooth, when no amount of coaxing or
+persuading, no amount of instructions beforehand or hints or orders could
+make that cook of ours lift a finger toward dinner until we both were in
+the house with hungry countenances and expectant demeanours?  We even
+tried telephoning her from down-town that we were on the way and would be
+at home in an hour.  When we came in at the end of that hour and said:
+
+"Mary, is dinner ready?" the answer was always:
+
+"No, dear child, but it will be in a minute."
+
+At first we believed her and hurried to get ready, but as ten, twenty,
+thirty minutes passed and no signs of soup appeared, we used to take
+turns strolling carelessly into the kitchen as if to see what time it
+was, to investigate the progress of dinner.  If we came in at seven we
+got it at eight.  There was no way apparently of circumventing her.  She
+would have her own way.
+
+Once the Angel said:
+
+"Mary, didn't we telephone you that we wanted dinner just as soon as we
+came in?"
+
+"Yes, sir!"
+
+"Well, wasn't it six o'clock when we telephoned?"
+
+"Yes, sir, but I just thought maybe you would be delayed or the car would
+run off the track or you'd stop to talk to some friends, so I wouldn't
+begin to cook until I clapped my two eyes on you."
+
+At first we used to laugh and say that it was her respect for food.  Then
+it worked on our tempers and grew anything but funny.  It got to be
+exasperating, infuriating, maddening.
+
+"Now, Aubrey," I said, "it has come to the battle with the cook.  Shall
+we submit to petty tyranny or shall we strike?"
+
+"I'll tell you what," said the Angel.  "I haven't quite made up my mind
+whether Mary is really amenable to kindness or whether she takes us for
+suckers."
+
+"Oh," I gasped.  I had never taken myself for a "sucker" before, and even
+in such good company as that of my husband it gave me a jar to hear the
+possibility mentioned.
+
+"I am convinced of one thing," he went on, "Mary has been badly spoiled,
+and, while I have no objection to her ruling us in any way she likes, I
+am going to compel her to obey orders when she gets them."
+
+"Oh, be careful!" I cried.
+
+"I'm going to.  But first I am going to investigate the labyrinths of her
+mind.  If it is that she respects food more than she does our feelings,
+I'll do one thing.  If it is that kindness won't work, I'll try severity.
+But I'm going to make that old woman obey me and have dinner on time."
+
+The Angel delivered this alarming ultimatum without raising his voice and
+with no more emphasis than he would use in saying:
+
+"May I trouble you for the salt?"
+
+I leaned back and looked at him.
+
+"As if you could be severe with any one, you Angel!"
+
+From which remark the knowing can easily deduce the length of time we had
+been married.
+
+It was then ten minutes to eight.  We had come in at six, and at five we
+had telephoned her to have dinner promptly at seven.
+
+"I hope you had a good tea," said Aubrey, looking at the clock.
+
+"I did.  It isn't that I am hungry.  I'm mad," I answered, genially.
+
+"I am not mad.  I am hungry," said Aubrey.
+
+"Being hungry for a man is the same as being mad for a woman," I observed.
+
+Aubrey grinned.
+
+"Now," he said, mysteriously.  "Don't eat any dinner to-night, and follow
+my lead in everything."
+
+"Don't eat any dinner!" I cried, in a whisper.  "I am starv--"
+
+"Hush," he whispered.  "You said you weren't hungry."
+
+Although we were only ten feet away from her and in plain view, Mary
+struck the Roman chime of bells, by which she always announces dinner.
+
+As we took our seats the clock struck eight.  The table was a dream of
+loveliness.  Wedding-silver, wedding-glass, wedding-linen graced it at
+every turn, for Mary always decorates for us as for a banquet.
+
+Never has the fragrant odour of soup assailed me as it did on that
+particular night.  Mary hovered around, watching to see how we liked it.
+We tasted it, and laid our spoons down.  We talked languidly, without
+noticing her.
+
+"What's the matter with the soup?" she finally demanded when she could
+stand it no longer.  We looked up as if surprised.
+
+"Why, nothing," said Aubrey.  "I don't care for it.  That's all.  Take it
+away."
+
+"It will do nicely for to-morrow night," said Mary.
+
+At that Aubrey dropped his entire cigarette into his and I put a spoonful
+of salt into mine.
+
+"Isn't it good, Missis?" asked Mary of me.
+
+"I don't know," I said, wearily.  "I'm too tired to eat."
+
+"Take it away," said Aubrey again.
+
+"My poor dear child!" cried Mary.  "Too tired to eat!  But eating will do
+you good.  Taste a bit!  Try it, Missis dear!"
+
+"No, I don't seem to care for it, and I was very hungry at seven o'clock.
+Don't you remember, Aubrey, I said coming up in the elevator how hungry I
+was?"
+
+"I remember," said my husband.  "But you are just like me.  If you don't
+have your meals at a certain time your appetite goes."
+
+At that Mary lifted her head and looked at us through her spectacles.
+Never were four more innocent eyes to be met with than ours.  We looked
+at her calmly until she lowered her gaze.  It was not an impudent nor a
+defiant look she gave us.  It was a trial of wills.  Our two against her
+one.
+
+She removed the soup without more ado, and brought in a broiled chicken.
+Oh, oh!  Shall I ever forget it!  I was so hungry by that time that I
+could have bitten a piece out of my plate.
+
+Mary stood by with a face as anxious as if she were standing by the
+death-bed of her child.
+
+Aubrey lifted it with the carving-fork, looked at me, and said:
+
+"Do you feel as if you could eat a little bit of this?"
+
+A little bit!  I felt as if I could have snatched it in my paws and run
+growling to a corner to devour the whole of it and to bury the bones for
+the next day.
+
+"No," I said, wearily, leaning my head on my hand to hide my countenance.
+"But you eat some, dear."
+
+Aubrey laid down the carving-fork.
+
+"No, I don't care for any."
+
+"What time did you have your luncheon, dear?" I asked, anxiously.
+
+"At half-past twelve.  I had an appointment with Squires at one."
+
+"And what did you have?" I continued, for Mary's face was expressive of
+the liveliest horror.
+
+"A club sandwich and a glass of beer."
+
+Mary looked at the clock.  It was half-past eight.
+
+"Oh, my dear!" I said, mournfully.  "It is no wonder you can't eat.  Your
+stomach is too exhausted to feel hunger."
+
+Mary ran around the table for no reason at all.  She took the cover off
+the best silver dish.  It was a dish of fresh peas cooked with onions and
+lettuce.  Petits pois a la paysanne!  I had taught her myself!  I simply
+glared at it.  To this day I can smell those onions!
+
+"If I could have had those at seven o'clock," said Aubrey, sadly, "I
+could have eaten every one of them.  They look delicious, Mary, but I
+really--no, don't urge me!  Take the dinner off."
+
+"Oh, boss dear, if you'd just take a lick at them!" implored Mary.  "Just
+one lick--there's a handsome man!"
+
+Aubrey bit his lips.  I was trembling on the verge of hysterical laughter.
+
+Mary implored in vain.  With our famished eyes on the peas and chicken we
+saw them disappear through the swinging door.  Mary in her agony was
+talking aloud.
+
+"Keep it up!" whispered the Angel.  "This will fetch her!  She's ready to
+cry."
+
+"Oh, but Aubrey," I moaned.  "I'm ready to gnaw the napkin and eat my
+slippers.  Please come and tighten my belt!"
+
+"I know now how explorers and castaways feel," murmured the Angel.  "For
+heaven's sake, what comes next?"
+
+"Asparagus!" I wailed.  "Fresh asparagus.  I paid ninety cents for it!
+And she's cooked it with her white sauce--oh!"
+
+The door opened and Mary, with pink cheeks and dancing eyes, brought in
+and deposited before me my favourite dish.  Asparagus on toast.  I looked
+at it longingly, feverishly!  I was famishing.  My throat was dry and my
+eyes had a savage glare.  I had heard of men going mad for want of food.
+I know now how they felt.
+
+At first I could not speak.  I was obliged to swallow violently.
+
+"There!" cried Mary, triumphantly.  "You can't pass that up!"
+
+"Alas!" I sighed, shaking my head.  I looked at her and felt simply
+murderous.  That white-haired old woman's obstinacy in not giving us our
+dinner on time was the cause of all my misery.  I resolved to rub it in.
+Her face was a study.
+
+"Did you ever," I said, mournfully, "see me refuse asparagus before?"
+
+"You're never going to refuse it!" exclaimed Mary, incredulously.
+"Missis!  I used a pint of cream, to say nothing of the butter!  Why,
+it's a sin!  It's a mortal sin in you not to try it!  See, Missis, let me
+put a little on your plate.  I'll feed it to you like as if you were a
+baby!  I will indeed!"
+
+"No," I said, clutching at the table-cloth to keep from falling upon that
+dish of asparagus and shovelling it down my throat in huge
+handfuls,--"no, I couldn't!  Mary!  I am too weak, really, I think I am
+starving!"
+
+I leaned back and closed my eyes.  The clock struck nine.
+
+"You've had nothing to eat all day!" cried Mary.  "You had only a bite
+for your lunch, and that was eight hours ago!  Oh, Missis, dear!  Ain't I
+the mean dog!  Let me make you a cup of tea!  Missis dear!  In the name
+of God eat something!  Do!"
+
+"No," I said.  "I have always been this way.  If I go five minutes over
+the time when I expect my dinner, I feel just this way.  I can't eat."
+
+With which astonishing lie, I leaned back as if death were already
+looming up in the distance.
+
+Mary made one more attack.  Salad was the Angel's weak point as asparagus
+was mine, and Mary always made a dream of beauty out of it.  She scorned
+"_fatiguer la laitue_" as the French do.  Instead she kept it in a bowl
+of water until thoroughly "awake," as she called it.  Then carefully
+examining each leaf separately, she tied them in a wet cloth and laid
+them "spang on the ice," which course of treatment rendered them so crisp
+that to cut them with a sharp salad-fork was always to get a little
+dressing splashed in one's eye.  Furthermore she arranged them in the
+best cut-glass dish in symmetrical rows with the scarlet tomatoes tucked
+invitingly in the centre.  She presented us with such a dish on this
+evening.  Then when Aubrey (who will be remembered when he is no more,
+not for his moral qualities nor for his domestic virtues, but for the
+skill with which he used to mix a salad dressing) went to work and
+prepared one from tarragon, vinegar, oil, Nepaul pepper, paprika, black
+and cayenne pepper, to say nothing of plenty of salt,--words fail me!  I
+simply pass away at the recollection.
+
+I have never been able to make up my mind whether Mary suspected us or
+not.  Of course we overdid the part, but it was a physical necessity.  I
+can go without a thing altogether, but I cannot be moderate.  I really
+thought I was not hungry until Aubrey told me not to eat, and that, of
+course, was enough to make any woman ravenous.  If he had told me "to
+buck up and eat a good dinner," of course I could only have nibbled.
+
+She broke out again, and pleaded hard for us to drink our coffee, but we
+were obdurate.
+
+Finally we got up from the table and Mary removed the cloth, muttering to
+herself.  I overheard some of it, but where any other cook would have
+been furious at us for not eating her delicious dinner, the dear old
+soul's rage was all directed against herself, and she was vituperating
+herself in language which would not have gone through the mails.
+
+But now the question was where and how to get our dinner so that Mary
+would not suspect.  To send her to church and forage in our own ice-box
+was out of the question, for she knows to a dot how much there is of
+everything, and I cannot take an olive that she does not miss it and come
+and ask me if I took it, to avert suspicion from the ice-man.
+Furthermore, it we both went out, she might suspect.  And we had taught
+her too heroic a lesson to go and spoil it by carelessness now.
+
+"What shall we do?" murmured my husband.
+
+"There's only one thing to do," I said, in low, even tones, with my book
+before my face.  "Go out and buy something ready cooked,--something which
+leaves no trace,--something small enough to go into your overcoat pocket,
+but oh, in the name of heaven, get enough!"
+
+Mary came in as the outer door slammed.
+
+"Where's boss gone?" she demanded.  Perhaps it was only my guilty
+conscience which made her tones sound suspicious.
+
+"Just over to Columbus Avenue to get a paper," I said.
+
+"Oh!"
+
+I waited in a guilty and trembling silence for the Angel to return.  What
+if Mary should take it into her head to come and help him off with his
+overcoat?  She often did.  I softly opened the outer door.  If she didn't
+hear him enter, all would be well.
+
+Presently he came up.  He got out of the elevator stealthily, and I met
+him with my finger on my lip.
+
+"Aren't you going to take off your hat?" I said, as he stole down the
+corridor.
+
+"Can't!"  he whispered.  "I've got cream puffs in it."
+
+I only waited to ward off an attack from the rear.  I put my head in at
+the butler's pantry.
+
+"Mary, I have such a headache that I am going to bed now, so be as quiet
+as you can, won't you?"
+
+"I'll come and open the bed for you right this instantaneous minute, my
+poor dear child," she said, taking her hands out of the dish-water.
+
+"No, I'll open it!  I don't mind in the least," I said, eagerly.
+
+"Not at all!  Do you think I'll be letting you lift your hand when you're
+sick?"
+
+Finding that I could not prevent her, I hurried down the hall to discover
+the Angel looking wildly for a place of escape--still with his hat on.  I
+motioned him into the bathroom, and his coat-tails disappeared therein,
+just as Mary loomed into view.
+
+It took her a full quarter of an hour to open that bed, for nothing would
+do but she must unhook me.  And all that time my thoughts were on the
+cream puffs.  I did hope that Aubrey would have sense enough to put them
+on the wash-stand.
+
+Finally I got rid of Mary, and released the Angel.  He clanked as he came
+in, but that was two pint bottles of beer.
+
+I locked the door, and then he unloaded.  Besides the beer and cream
+puffs, he had four devilled crabs and two dill pickles, four club
+sandwiches, some Roquefort cheese, and some Bent biscuits.
+
+He was obliged to make one more dangerous pilgrimage to the front hall to
+slam the door and hang up his hat and coat, otherwise Mary would have
+gone out after him.  We have such a competent cook.
+
+Finally we sat down and gorged on that impossible mixture.  We had only
+Aubrey's pocket-knife, a paper-cutter, and a button-hook to eat with, and
+rather than to stop and wash out his shaving-cup we drank out of the
+bottles.
+
+We ate until we felt the need of dyspepsia tablets, but still there was
+some left.  This Aubrey did up in a neat package, we raised the window,
+turned out the lights, and threw it far, far out into the night.  We
+listened and heard it fall in a neighbour's back yard.
+
+Now, if we had stopped there, all would have been well, but Fate tempted
+us in the person of a vile and nasty little curly white dog, with a pink
+skin and a blue ribbon around her neck, whose mistress used to lead her
+up and down in front of our apartment-house every evening.  She was a
+very nasty little dog, badly spoiled, and we had longed to kick her for
+six months, but her mistress was always there and we couldn't.
+
+But oh, joy!  On this particular night, she was in the back yard all
+alone, yapping and whining to get indoors.  Clearly this was the best
+place for the empty beer bottles.
+
+"Don't hit her, Aubrey.  Just aim for the cement walk.  That will scare
+her to death."
+
+The Angel seldom follows my wicked counsel, but this was the hand of
+Providence.  No one, who has not owned a big dog, can know how we hated
+this miserable, pampered little cur.
+
+So Aubrey took aim.  The beer bottle hurtled through the air.  We stepped
+back and listened.  It crashed on the walk, and such a series of agonized
+yelps from the frightened little beast resulted as I never before had
+heard.  We clutched each other in silent ecstasy.  Fortunately the pup's
+mistress had not heard.
+
+Emboldened by success we stole forth again, and shied the second bottle.
+But that time Providence was against us, for, at the identical moment
+that the bottle hit the corner of the house and flew into a million
+pieces, the door opened and the dog's mistress appeared.
+
+The crash was something awful.  Nobody was hit or hurt, but the woman
+shrieked and the Angel and I fell to the floor as if shot.  Instantly
+windows flew up, and as each head appeared the infuriated woman accused
+it of having thrown the bottle.  I reached for the Angel's hand as we
+grovelled on the floor, and our former spirit returned as indignant
+denials were followed by more indignant slamming of windows.
+
+Finally--silence.  Two hands sneaked up in the darkness and pulled our
+window down.
+
+"We could prove an alibi," I giggled, "for Mary would go on the stand and
+swear that I was in bed prostrated with a headache!"
+
+The next night the soup was on the table at five minutes before seven,
+and we heard that the white dog was laid up for a week with an "_attaque
+des nerfs_."
+
+"Who would have thought," I sighed, in delight, "of the luck of fetching
+Mary and that white dog both in one evening!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE BEST MAN'S STORY
+
+Trouble began to brew for the best man at my bridesmaid's dinner, but
+it was all his fault.  He says it was mine.
+
+I claim, and I think that all girls will support me in this theory,
+that at all wedding functions, such as teas, receptions, luncheons, and
+dinners, the best man owes the maid of honour the first and most of his
+attentions.  It is her due, and no matter whether he likes her or hates
+her; no matter if he is already in love with another girl, or sees one
+there that he would like to be in love with, he belongs, for the
+wedding festivities, to the first bridesmaid.  It is like the girl your
+hostess assigns to you at dinner,--you _must_ be nice to her.
+
+So Cary Farquhar thought, and so I think.  Artie Beguelin said:
+
+"Then you oughtn't to have invited Flora Forsyth to the bridesmaid's
+dinner."
+
+Well, perhaps I oughtn't.  But I did, because she asked to come.  One
+can't refuse a request of that sort.  Even Aubrey admits that.
+
+Flora was a dreamy, trusting blonde.  She was an innocent appearing
+little thing, and although she was just out of college, I believed she
+would faint at the idea of a cigarette in a girl's fingers or any of
+the mad things college girls are supposed to do when larking.  She had
+no sense of humour, and I simply could not think of her as up to any
+mischief.  That is why, when she said she had fallen in love with me, I
+believed her.  She knew I was to have Cary for my only attendant, but
+she begged so innocently to come to the bridesmaid's dinner and to sit
+with the family behind the white ribbon, that I hadn't the heart to say
+no.  That is why she was at the dinner, and what happened there you
+shall hear presently.
+
+Arthur Beguelin was the Angel's best man.  He, too, was Aubrey's sole
+attendant, for we had no ushers.
+
+Artie was neither clever nor stupid, but that gentle, amiable cross
+between the two which made him fair game for a designing girl.  He was
+better than clever.  He was magnetic, as Cary and Flora found to their
+sorrow.
+
+His father had been enormously wealthy, but his vast property had
+slipped out of his keeping, and had become involved in a lawsuit of
+such dimensions and such hopeless duration that Artie might just as
+well consider himself as a ward in chancery, and be done with it.
+
+This loss of fortune, however, instead of demoralizing him, had been
+his salvation.  It set him to work, and made a man of him.  He never
+believed that he would inherit a dollar of his father's, so he prepared
+to make his own way in the world, regardless of golden hopes.
+
+But not so his friends.  His prospects, hazy as they were, made him
+most interesting to match-making mothers, and as his indomitable
+courage made him interesting to the other and better sort, you will see
+that Artie was pursued rather more than most eligible young men.  This
+pursuit had made him wary and cautious.  Had he been more
+introspective, it would have embittered him; but it shows his amiable
+modesty when I assert that Artie only fought shy of the more aggressive
+anglers, whose landing-nets were always in evidence, while he never
+refused to swim nimbly around and even nibble at the bait of the more
+tactful.
+
+I have described him thus carefully, because it just shows how the most
+wary of men can be caught napping by the right kind of cleverness, and
+which was the right girl for him it took both us and him some time to
+discover.
+
+At first sight, it seemed to be Flora.  As Aubrey said: "It was all off
+with him from the moment he saw her."  He had been the stroke in the
+Yale crew during two glorious years of victory, and, like most men who
+gloried in the companionship of athletic girls, he elected to fall in
+love with Flora, who, the first time she met him, wanted to know the
+difference between a putter and a bunker, which so tickled Artie that
+he put in two good hours explaining it to her.
+
+Cary had known Flora for some time, but two girls could not have been
+more unlike.  Cary was rich, courted, and flattered.  She had only to
+express a wish to have it granted, yet, strange anomaly, she was the
+most unselfish girl I ever knew, and was always going out of her way to
+be nice to people.
+
+Flora was poor.  She went to college by means of a loan from a rich
+woman, and kept herself there by winning scholarships.  She expected to
+teach for a living, and she hated the prospect.  She had to work hard
+for everything she had, which was probably the reason why she was so
+selfish.  To be sure, she was always offering you things, but it was
+either after some one else had offered first, or else she offered
+things you couldn't possibly want.  And as to offering to do things for
+you, I never saw her equal at the formula, "I am going down-town.
+Can't I do something for you?"  Yet if you by any chance made the
+mistake of saying, "That's awfully good of you.  I _would_ like three
+yards of French nainsook," in half an hour Flora would come in with the
+story that she had been telephoned out to luncheon and wasn't going
+down-town, or else had a headache and couldn't go, after all; or, if
+she went, she did her own shopping first and came in breathless with a
+"I'm so tired!  I went everywhere for your French nainsook, but every
+shop was just out of it.  I tried _so_ hard, and now you'll think I am
+just stupid and _can't_ shop."
+
+At which you always had to comfort her and do something extra for
+her, to show that you didn't blame her in the least.  Whenever she
+had grossly imposed upon you, Flora had a way of looking at you
+with what I called the "dog look,"--a humble, faithful, adoring,
+"don't-kick-me-because-I-love-you-so" look, which used to give me
+what Angel calls the jiggle-jaggles, which is only another name for
+twitching nerves,--either mental or physical.
+
+However, I have noticed that these people who are always offering their
+"Can't I do something for you?" never expect to be taken up.  I suppose
+it isn't in human nature any more to be helpful to a friend.  The
+answer to that question is "Thank you so much, dear, for offering, but
+I really don't want a thing!"  That cements the friendship.
+
+Cary was honest, straightforward, and thoughtful.  Flora was crafty,
+deceitful, and brilliant, but her innocent eyes and baby ways made her
+cleverness seem like that of a precocious child, so that she always
+disarmed suspicion.
+
+She deceived me so skilfully and completely that I find myself
+thoroughly mixed in describing her, for at one moment I tell how she
+appeared to me at first, and the next I find myself setting her forth
+as I found her after Cary and Aubrey had set a trap to make me see her
+in her true light.  They were obliged to set a trap, for my loyalty is
+of the blind, stupid sort, which will not be convinced, and all the
+arguments in the world would only have made me more ardently champion
+her as a friend.
+
+You could not call Cary athletic, because she did not go in for
+out-of-door sports to the exclusion of the gentler forms of amusement.
+But whatever she did, she did so well that you would think she had
+given most of her time to the mastering of that one accomplishment.
+But here is where her cleverness showed most.  It was not that she
+really did everything, and did it perfectly.  It was that she never
+attempted anything which she had not mastered.  For example, she never
+played whist, because she had no memory, no finesse, and because she
+played games of chance so much better.  She could never settle herself
+down to a multitude of details, but she could plan and execute a coup
+of such brilliancy that it would make your hair stand on end.  Such was
+Cary Farquhar, and her most successful coup was the way she compelled
+me to see Flora Forsyth in her true colours.
+
+Sometimes I think I am quite clever.  Again I think I am a perfect
+fool.  And the agains come oftener than the sometimes.
+
+I would enjoy making a continuous narrative of this story, as I could
+if I were writing a book, but this is a record of real life, and real
+life does not happen in finished chapters.  If you try to make it, you
+either have to leave out a bit, or go back and repeat something.
+
+Thus, in telling this story of Flora, if I told the perfect faith I had
+in her at first and of how utterly I came to know and despise her
+afterward, I should show to everybody the fool I made of myself, and
+that exhibition I prefer to keep as much to myself as possible.  The
+Angel knows it, and that is bad enough.  So that is why I must make a
+hodge-podge of it, telling a bit here and a bit there, just as things
+happened, and pretending that I saw through her from the first--which,
+however, I didn't.
+
+But, in order to give some idea of her methods, which are of interest
+as a human document, I must set down faithfully how I came to be drawn
+into this love-story, and how the Angel and Cary pulled me out.
+
+This is the very beginning of it.
+
+If you knew our best man, you probably would not be surprised to make
+the discovery that I made--to wit: that two girls were in love with him
+at the same time, for the most ordinary of men have sometimes a
+powerful attraction for the most superior of girls, and Arthur Beguelin
+was much above the ordinary, in looks, manners, breeding, and wealth.
+He was, as I have said, almost rich, which would of itself, to the
+cynic, preclude his being at all nice.  But he was nice.  I liked him,
+the Angel liked him, and these two girls loved him.
+
+I will admit, however, that I was surprised,--just a little,--at first,
+but after I thought about it, I said to Aubrey, "Well, why not?"  He
+said, "Why not what?"
+
+"Why _shouldn't_ two girls be in love with him?"
+
+"They should," said the Angel, pleasantly.  "There is no doubt in the
+world that they should.  But who are the girls and who is the man?"
+
+I thought of course that he knew what I was talking about, or I
+shouldn't have begun in the middle like that, but after all, if you
+_do_ begin in the middle, you can often skip the whole beginning, and
+hurry along to the end.
+
+"Why, Artie Beg, to be sure!  Who else?  And as to the girls--well, as
+I discovered it for myself, I shall not be betraying their confidence
+to say that the girls are--will you _promise_ not to tell nor to
+interfere in anyway?"
+
+"Of course," said the Angel.
+
+"Well, the girls are Flora Forsyth and Cary Farquhar."
+
+"Flora Forsyth!" exclaimed the Angel, with a wry face.
+
+"Now, Aubrey, what _have_ you against that poor girl?  To me she is one
+of the most fascinating creatures I ever saw.  If I were a man, I
+should be crazy about her."
+
+"Then if you had been Samson, Delilah would have made a fool of you
+just as easily as she did of him."
+
+"But Flora is no Delilah, Aubrey."
+
+"She's worse!" said the Angel, shortly.
+
+Aubrey leaned back in his Morris chair and puffed at his pipe.
+Presently he spoke:
+
+"Those two girls are both clever,--as clever as they make 'em,--but
+Cary's cleverness is full of ozone, while Flora's is permeated with a
+narcotic.  Cary's tricks make one laugh, but the other girl's give one
+the shivers."
+
+"Oh, is it as bad as that?" I said, in affright.  "Don't you like her?"
+
+"Like her!" reflected the Angel, slowly.  "I hate her."
+
+I gasped.  Never, never had my husband expressed even a settled dislike
+of any one before, while as to the word "hate"--
+
+"Oh, Aubrey!" I cried, tearfully.  "I _wish_ you had said it before.
+The fact is, I've--well, I've invited her to visit me and she says
+she'll come."
+
+If I expected an explosion, I was mistaken.  Aubrey bit into his
+pipe-stem and sat looking at me for a moment without speaking, a kind,
+wistful look which completely undid me, and made me resolved never,
+_never_ again to do a single thing without consulting him first.  Then
+he leaned forward and slowly began to empty and clean his pipe.
+
+"You like her very much?" he said, tentatively.
+
+"I do, indeed!" I exclaimed, enthusiastically.  "And she is _so_ fond
+of you.  She fairly adores you.  If you would only _try_ to like her,
+Aubrey--she likes you so much--don't smile that way.  You don't do her
+justice.  Indeed you don't.  Why, she is the dearest, most confiding,
+innocent little thing, just out of college last month--a baby couldn't
+have more clinging, dependent ways."
+
+"I'm glad she is coming to visit you, if that's the way you feel about
+her," he said.
+
+I drew a sigh of relief.  _Some_ husbands would have made such a fuss
+that their wives would have felt obliged to cancel the invitation.
+Aubrey was different.
+
+"How did you come to invite her?" he asked, presently.
+
+I smiled in pleased anticipation of a good long talk with my husband,
+in which I could explain everything.
+
+"Why, you know at the wedding I saw that Artie was very much taken with
+her,--and--"
+
+"First, tell me how she came to sit with the family, inside the white
+ribbon?"
+
+"Why, she wrote and asked if she couldn't.  She said she loved me so
+she felt as if she were losing a sister, and that she wanted to sit
+with mother and mourn with the family."
+
+Aubrey grinned and I felt foolish.
+
+"And you believed her, you silly little cat!"
+
+"It does sound idiotic to repeat it, but it read as if she meant it," I
+said, blushing.
+
+"Never mind, dear," said the Angel.  "You are all right."
+
+Now, when Aubrey says I am "all right," it means that I am all wrong,
+but that he loves me in spite of it.
+
+"Bee says," I said between laughing and crying, "that I am just like a
+stray dog.  A pat on the head and a few kind words, and I'd follow
+anybody off."
+
+"It would take something more substantial than that to make Bee follow
+anybody off," observed Bee's brother-in-law.
+
+"Well, and so she and he were together all that evening, and afterward
+they corresponded.  But Cary, being my bridesmaid, had, of course, the
+first claim on Artie's attention, but he was so taken with Flora that
+he sort of neglected Cary.  Then, Cary being so spoiled by being rich
+and courted and flattered, was piqued into trying to make him notice
+her, which old stupid Artie refused to do, but tagged around after
+Flora as if she had hypnotized him.  Then Cary must have been quite
+roused, for the first thing I knew she was showing unmistakable signs
+of its being the real thing with her, though, of course, she would deny
+it with oaths if I taxed her, while Flora--"
+
+I stopped in sudden confusion.
+
+"I forget," I faltered.   "I said that neither had confided in me,
+but--"
+
+Aubrey grinned.
+
+"But Flora has," he supplemented.  "She has confessed her love, not
+blushingly, but tumultuously, brazenly, tempestuously, and has begged
+you to help her!"
+
+I paused aghast.  Aubrey had exactly stated the case.
+
+"Well, she told Cary, too," I said, in self-extenuation, "so she can't
+care very much that I've told you."
+
+"Oh, no," said Aubrey, cheerfully.  "She'll tell me herself the first
+chance she gets."
+
+"She told Cary that she had told me, so we felt at liberty to talk it
+over," I added.
+
+"She did?"
+
+"And Cary was perfectly disgusted with her, and asked what I was going
+to do.  I said I didn't know.  Then what do you think she did?  Cary
+asked me to ask Flora to visit me!  What do you think of that for a
+bluff?"
+
+Again Aubrey grinned.  He shook his head.
+
+"That was no bluff, Faith dear.  That was a move in a game of chess.
+Cary Farquhar is the choicest--_unmarried_--girl I know!  By Jove,
+she's a corker!"
+
+"She just did it to throw me off--to show me that _she_ didn't want
+him!" I persisted.
+
+The Angel shook his head and smiled inscrutably.
+
+"When does she come?" he asked.
+
+"Next week."
+
+Aubrey pulled at his pipe.
+
+"There will be something doing here next week, I'm thinking."
+
+
+There was something doing.
+
+First, I told old Mary that I was going to have company.
+
+One ordinarily does not ask permission of one's cook, but Mary was such
+a mother to me that I felt the announcement to be no more than her due.
+
+"Who is it, Missus, dear?"
+
+"Miss Flora Forsyth.  Have you ever heard me speak of her?"
+
+"Do you mean that blonde on the mantelpiece?" she asked, in the
+conversational tone of one who but passed the time o' day.
+
+"Mary!" I said.
+
+She walked up to Flora's picture, took it down, looked at it, and put
+it back.
+
+"Well," I said, tentatively, "what do you think of her?"
+
+"What do I think of her?" demanded Mary, wheeling on me so suddenly
+that I dodged.  "I think she is a little blister--that's what I think
+of her.  And you'll rue the day you ever asked her into your house."
+
+Ordinarily one would reprove one's cook for such freedom of speech, but
+I had brought it on myself.  Therefore I saved my breath, put on my
+hat, and went out, ruminating and somewhat shaken in my mind to have
+the two household authorities against me.
+
+However, true to my determination to make her visit as attractive as
+possible, I purchased at least a dozen sorts of fine French marmalades,
+jellies, sweets, and fancy pickles, such as schoolgirls love.
+
+She had told me so many times how she had always wanted her breakfast
+in her room, but had never been able to have it, that I decided to give
+her that privilege in my house.  I told Mary with some misgivings, and
+showed her the things I had bought.  To my surprise, Mary assented
+joyfully.  I never knew why until after Flora left.  Then Mary told me.
+I even selected the china she was to use on the breakfast-tray.  It was
+blue and gold.  Flora loved blue.  Then I took a final look at
+everything, gave a few last orders, and dismissed all worry from my
+mind.
+
+Her room, _the guest chamber_ of the Jardines, was fresh for her.  No
+one had ever slept in that bed, fluttered those curtains, nor written
+at that desk.  Flora would be its first occupant.
+
+And how her blond beauty matched its pale blue and gold loveliness!  It
+gave me thrills of delight to think of her in the midst of it all.
+
+But of course it was Cary I loved.  Flora simply fascinated me.  She
+possessed the attractions of a Circe, but Cary was worth a million of
+her, and I knew it and I wanted her to have Artie Beg, or anybody else
+on earth she fancied.  The whole proposition was as plain as day when I
+came to think about it.  I was Cary's champion, Cary's friend, and
+intended Cary to win.  Why, therefore, had I permitted myself to be
+inveigled into asking Flora to visit me, under the supposition that I
+was going to help her?  It was not because Cary had begged me to.  Not
+at all.  It was Flora herself who had managed it, I reflected, and it
+gave me a bitter, uncomfortable twinge to realize that whatever Flora
+had wanted me to do, in our brief friendship, I had done, no matter
+whose judgment it went against.
+
+Had the girl hypnotic power, or was I a weak fool to be flattered into
+doing her bidding?
+
+I don't like to think of myself as a weak fool, even for the sake of
+argument.
+
+The two girls had hated each other at sight, as was natural.  Cary
+admitted the reason with glorious frankness.
+
+"Of course I hate her," she said, with a lift of her sleek brown head,
+"didn't she usurp my prerogatives at the wedding?  The best man
+belongs, for that evening alone, to the maid of honour--he can't escape
+it--it is his fate.  Common civility should have chained him to my
+chariot wheels, but with that white-headed Lilith at work on him, with
+her half-shut eyes, she had him queered before he even saw me.  But
+wait.  My turn will come."
+
+Flora said to me:
+
+"Of course I hate her, because _you_ love her.  You love her better
+than you love me.  You have known her longer--that's the only reason!
+She doesn't care _that_ for you.  It's because you are married, and can
+give her a good time that she pretends to care for you.  _I_ know.  Oh,
+you may laugh and think I am jealous or insane or anything you like.
+Well, then, I _am_ jealous, for I love you better than anybody in the
+world, and I want you to love me in the same way.  I love you better
+than I love my mother--or my father--or even Artie Beg!  And I am
+jealous of every one you speak to.  I am jealous most of all of Aubrey,
+for you have eyes for no one on earth but him.  I could hate him when I
+think of it."
+
+At that I _did_ laugh, but she was a good actress, and said it as if
+she meant it.
+
+Flora always acted as if she knew of my repressed childhood, and of
+how, all my life, I had thirsted for praise.  No matter if it had been
+put on with a trowel, as hers undoubtedly was, I would have wrapped
+myself in its tropical warmth and luxuriance, and never paused to
+quarrel with its effulgence.  While dear old Cary let her actions
+speak, and seldom put her affection for me into words.  But she had
+been on the eve of sailing for a winter in Egypt when my hurried
+wedding preparations and frantic telegram arrested her.  The party
+sailed without her, and she did not try to follow.  And that was only
+one of the many sacrifices she had made for me, and made without a
+word, too.
+
+She was a girl of thought and of ideas, but unfortunately she was a
+great heiress, and fortune-hunters had made her suspicious and cynical.
+Only Aubrey and I knew how glorious she could be when she let herself
+out and expressed her real self.
+
+The first thing Flora did to make me uncomfortable was to pump the
+Angel about Artie's law-suit.
+
+It was so intricate, so long drawn out, and so enormous in its
+proportions, that it bade fair to resemble the famous Jarndyce and
+Jarndyce.  We had never mentioned it to Artie, but Flora, after a few
+reluctant words from Aubrey, persuaded Artie, in the easiest way
+imaginable, to tell her everything about it, from its inception.  She
+told me she had even read half a dozen of her uncle's law-books, which
+bore upon the knotty points Artie had described to her.  Instead of
+arousing his suspicions of mercenary motives, her innocent manner and
+flowerlike face deceived him into believing that her interest was very
+commendable.  She explained that she had always wanted to study law,
+but that her father wouldn't let her, so that she always coaxed her
+friends to describe their law-suits to her, and then she read up on
+them by herself.  Artie thought this was wonderful.  So it was.
+
+Cary would never listen to a word about it, nor read about it in the
+papers; nor could she be inveigled into expressing an opinion about it
+one way or the other.  Her pride revolted from appearing even to know
+that he had such prospects, faint and distant though they were.
+
+When Flora came, Mary put on her spectacles before she opened the door.
+I noticed the look she gave all three of us.  It did not speak well for
+Flora.
+
+But, at first, her shyness and modesty left nothing to be desired.  Her
+clothes were simple even to plainness, her voice soft and deprecating,
+and her manner deferential in the extreme.  She was always asking
+advice, and where that advice was given, she always followed it.
+Flattery could go no further.
+
+Artie came to see her, morning, noon, and night.  I was horrified to
+discover how far things seemed to have progressed, for, after all, it
+was Cary who _must_ have Artie if she wanted him.
+
+Cary called on Flora once, and we returned it, but she did not come
+again.  So I resolved on a dinner, and Cary promised to come.  The
+others were to be the Jimmies, Bee, and three more persons so
+insignificant, so vapid, so entirely not worth describing that, in a
+race, they would not even be mentioned as "also rans."  In short, they
+were the typical dinner-guests the hostess always fills in with.
+
+I worked hard on that dinner.  Flora offered to help, but Mary, without
+actually refusing her assistance, managed to do without it, and I did
+not realize until afterward how quickly Flora accepted her fate, and
+curled herself up luxuriously on Aubrey's couch in Aubrey's particular
+corner to read, while I bleached the almonds which she had offered to
+do.
+
+Flora kept me well informed of the progress of Artie's passion for her,
+and I could do nothing.  I was surprised at her confiding such details
+to any one, dismayed for Cary's sake, and worried as to how it would
+turn out.
+
+Finally the evening of the dinner came.  I dressed and ran out to the
+kitchen to see if everything was all right, for Mary was so jealous she
+refused to let me engage an assistant, but doggedly persisted in
+preparing and serving the dinner entirely by herself.
+
+To my surprise, I found the dining-room and kitchen shades pulled up to
+the tops of the windows, while every handsome dish Mary intended to
+use, and all the extra silver, were carefully placed on top of the
+laundry-tubs.  Mary, apparently unconscious of observation, was flying
+around with pink cheeks, and the eyes behind the spectacles snapping
+with excitement.
+
+"Don't say a word, Missus," she said, sitting on her heels before the
+oven door.  "I did it for the benefit of the rubber factory opposite.
+They think I don't notice, but look at them windows.  Not a light in
+any of 'em, but all the curtains moving just a little.  Do they think I
+don't know there's a rubber behind every damn one of 'em?  Don't laugh,
+Missus dear, and don't look over there, whatever you do.  If they want
+a look at the things we eat, why let 'em!  They know what they cost,
+but I'll bet they never do more than ask the price of 'em, and then buy
+soup-bones and canned vegetables for their own stomachs."
+
+Mary didn't say stomachs, but much of Mary's conversation does not look
+well in print.
+
+"And just wait till I take in the 'peche flambee'!" she chuckled.
+"I'll bet they'll order out the fire department!"
+
+I said nothing, for the very excellent reason that there was really
+nothing to say.  Mary has a way of being rather conclusive.  There was
+no use in remonstrating or telling her not to, for she simply would not
+have obeyed me, so I forbore to give the order.
+
+Flora heard Mary let Artie Beg in, and ran down the corridor to meet
+him.  She was a vision in white--her graduation dress--with her snowy
+shoulders rising modestly from a tulle bertha.  I paused in order to
+let her greet him first, and, to my consternation, before I could make
+known my presence, I heard her say, plaintively:
+
+"Aren't you going to kiss me?"
+
+Then with a stifled groan Artie flung his arms around her, pressing her
+to him as if he would never let her go.  Then he pushed her away from
+him almost roughly, and Flora laughed a low, tantalizing laugh, and
+crept back to him to lean her head on his shoulder, and lay her arms
+around his neck.
+
+I turned and fled.  I fairly stampeded down the hall, running full tilt
+against Aubrey, and nearly folding him up.
+
+"Oh!  Oh!" I gasped, dancing up and down before him excitedly.
+
+He seized both my hands.
+
+"Hold still, Faith!  What's the matter?  Tell me!"
+
+"They're engaged!" I wailed.  "I'm too late!  Cary has lost him!"
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Artie and Flora."
+
+"What makes you think so?"
+
+"He's kissing her!  And she asked him to, just as if she had a right.
+I would not think so much of it, if he had just grabbed her and kissed
+her without a word, for she looks too witching, and any man might lose
+his head, but for her to ask for it--oh, what shall I do!"
+
+"Hold on!  You say she asked him to--tell me just how."
+
+I told him.
+
+The Angel put both hands in his pockets and whistled.
+
+"Don't worry," he said.  "They're not engaged."
+
+I felt relieved at once, for the Angel does not write books from
+guesswork.  He _knows_ things.
+
+But I was greatly confused at going back.  Of course they did not know
+that I had seen and heard, and equally, of course, I could not tell
+them.  But I had my confusion all to myself.  Artie seemed about as
+usual (which he wouldn't have done if he had known that there was
+powder on his coat), and Flora was as cool as an iceberg.
+
+It seems to me, as I look back, that that was the first time I
+suspected anything.  It was almost uncanny to see her sitting there
+looking so shy and demure, when two minutes before she had begged a man
+to kiss her, and laughed that cool, tantalizing laugh, as of one who
+knew her power and revelled in the sight of her victim's struggles to
+escape.
+
+I turned to Cary, my well-bred girl, my friend, with a feeling of
+relief, as if I had found a refuge.  Cary flushed a little as she
+greeted Artie, and Flora's lip curled perceptibly.
+
+I glanced at the Angel, and saw that he, too, had noticed it.  But
+then, Aubrey sees everything.  That is why he writes as he does.  His
+manner as he greeted Cary was so cordial that it caused Artie to look
+up, and then, to my surprise, Artie got up from his chair, and came and
+stood by Cary and took her fan.
+
+I wish you could have seen Flora's blue eyes turn green.
+
+Then Bee and the Jimmies came, and, as usual, I straightway forgot
+everything else, and bent my energies toward playing the part of
+hostess so that Bee would not feel disgraced.
+
+I followed her eye as it travelled over our gowns and around the
+apartment.  Bee does not realize that she has silently appointed
+herself Superior General to the universe, so she was somewhat
+disconcerted, when, as she finally leaned back with a sigh which seemed
+to say, "This is really as well as anybody could do who didn't have me
+to consult with," to hear Aubrey say, slyly:
+
+"Well, Bee, does it suit?"
+
+Bee assumed her most Park Lane air, and replied:
+
+"I don't know what you mean, Aubrey."
+
+Then to avoid further pleasantries, Mary standing in the doorway, I
+marshalled them all out to the table.
+
+Flora was between Aubrey and Artie, but I put Cary on the other side of
+Artie, while I took Jimmie by me, and mercilessly handed Mrs. Jimmie
+over to the "also rans."
+
+Flora, who pretended jealousy of the Angel to veil her instinctive
+dislike of one who read her through and through, frankly turned her
+back on him, and tried all her wiles on Artie, which would not have
+disconcerted him, had not the Also Ran commenced to smile and attract
+Mrs. Jimmie's attention to it.
+
+This brought Artie from his trance sufficiently to cause him to turn
+his attention to Cary, but it was so palpably forced that Cary devoted
+herself with ardour to Jimmie, and left Artie speechless.
+
+Then something spurred Flora to do a foolish thing.  She deliberately
+began to bait Cary--to say things to annoy her--to try to mortify her.
+At first Cary refused to see what was evident to the rest of us.  (Oh,
+my dinner-party was proving such a success!)
+
+At this critical juncture, Mary appeared bearing the chafing-dish full
+of blazing, flaming peaches, and in watching me ladle the fiery liquid,
+hostilities were for the moment discontinued.  Involuntarily, as Mary's
+satisfied countenance betokened her complete happiness at the
+successful culmination of the dinner, my eyes wandered to the
+dining-room windows.  I had drawn the shades with my own hand, but some
+mysterious agent had been at work, for they were let fly to the very
+window-tops.
+
+I glanced at Mary.  She pressed her lips together with a whimsical
+twist, and surreptitiously raised a finger in sly warning.
+
+"Them rubbers are having a fit!" she murmured in my ear, as she
+deferentially took a blazing peach from me, and placed it before Flora
+with a look so black it seemed to say:
+
+"If you get your deserts, you little blister, it would set fire to you!"
+
+They were talking about love when I began listening again,--and Cary
+made some remark inaudible to me, which gave Flora the opportunity to
+say:
+
+"Is it true, then, what I have heard?  Were you ever disappointed in
+love?"
+
+"Always!" said Cary, evenly.
+
+Jimmie grinned and jogged my elbow.
+
+"Isn't she a dandy?" he whispered.  "Never turned a hair."
+
+Flora flushed angrily because Artie laughed and looked appreciatively
+at Cary, as if really seeing her for the first time.
+
+Every woman knows when that supreme moment comes--at least, every woman
+has who has liked a man before he has liked her.  She feels it without
+looking at him.  She knows it from the innermost consciousness of her
+being.  "He is looking at me," says her heart, "for the first time,
+with the eyes which a man has for a woman."
+
+Many a man has been selected first, as Cary selected Artie, and been
+wooed by her as modestly and legitimately as she did, without
+suspecting that he did not take the initiative every time.
+
+So a little modest courage and restrained self-reliance crept into
+Cary's manner, which had never been there before, and I, believing
+implicitly in the Angel's _ipse dixit_ that Flora and the best man were
+not engaged, had visions of the first bridesmaid's winning her lost
+place with him, and, oh, making him pay for his neglect.
+
+If man only knew how heavily a flouted woman, after she has safely won
+him, does make him pay for his bad taste, he would be more careful.
+
+But Artie never knew.  He sat there, listening to the biting words
+which passed back and forth between Flora and Cary, without his modesty
+permitting him to realize that he was the stake these two clever girls
+were throwing mental dice for.
+
+But Jimmie knew, for his blue eyes turned black, and his cigarettes
+burned out in two puffs, and his nervous hands clenched and unclenched
+in his wicked wish to say something to aggravate the affair.  Finally,
+meeting my derisive grin, he wrenched my little finger under the table,
+under pretence of picking up my handkerchief, and whispered:
+
+"Oh, Lord, give me strength to keep out of this row!"
+
+I laughed, of course, and so missed something, for the next thing I
+heard, the conversation had become more personal, and Flora was saying:
+
+"Love is an acquisition.  The more you have, the more you want."
+
+"Pardon me," said Cary.  "To my mind, love is a sacrifice.  Yet the
+more you give, the more you gain."
+
+"But I don't want to believe that!" pouted Flora, charmingly.  "That is
+a cruel, ascetic conception of love.  It makes me shiver, like reading
+the New Testament."
+
+For the first time Artie spoke.
+
+"You prefer, then, the Song of Solomon?"  And the Angel brought his
+hand down on the table a little heavily, and looked at me.
+
+"Yes, I do!" laughed Flora, thinking she had scored.  "And I
+know--because I have loved!"
+
+"You have loved, have you?" said Cary, leaning forward to look at her
+across Artie's tucked shirt-front.  "Then if you have, truly and
+deeply, as a woman can, when she meets the man who is her mate, can you
+jest so lightly about love being an acquisition?  Are you thinking of
+his income and what he can give you more than your father has been able
+to do?  Does your idea of marriage consist of dinner-parties and routs?
+Or do you think of the man himself?  Of his noble qualities of heart
+and mind?  Does not the idea of permanent prosperity sometimes fade,
+and in its place do you not sometimes see the man you love, poor,
+neglected by his friends, and jeered by his enemies?  Does he not
+sometimes appear to you stretched on a weary bed of sickness?  Can you
+picture yourself his only friend, his only helper, his only comforter?
+If he were crippled for life, would you go out to try to earn bread for
+two, rejoicing that Fate had only taken his strength to toil, and not
+his strength to love?  Would you still count yourself a blessed woman
+if you knew that everything were swept away but the love of a man worth
+loving like that?"
+
+Flora quailed, and drew back, abashed and a little frightened, but
+Artie's face was a study.  At a sign from Aubrey, I looked at Mrs.
+Jimmie and rose.  Just behind me, as I turned, I heard Artie whisper to
+Cary:
+
+"Tell me, have _you_ ever loved like that?"
+
+And Cary's murmured reply:
+
+"Not yet, but--I could."
+
+After that, Flora's fascination seemed to wane.  Mrs. Jimmie never had
+liked her, and as we went into the drawing-room she gave Cary one of
+her rare and highly prized caresses, which Cary received gratefully.
+
+As for Artie, he never left Cary's side.  He was the first to follow us
+to the drawing-room, for as I always let men smoke at the table, we
+always leave it _en masse_.
+
+He said little, but he listened to every word Cary spoke, and he
+watched her as if fascinated.
+
+I was jubilant, and my sober old Angel almost permitted himself to look
+pleased, but not quite.  The Angel is never reckless with his emotions.
+
+Dinner had been over about two hours, and Mrs. Jimmie was beginning to
+look at the clock, when Aubrey approached and whispered:
+
+"I haven't heard a sound in the kitchen since dinner, and Mary hasn't
+entered the dining-room.  Don't you think we would better take a look
+at her?"
+
+The kitchen was separated from the dining-room by only the butler's
+pantry.  As we opened the swinging door, a figure holding a
+chafing-dish in both hands attempted to rise from the cracker-box, but
+sank back again, shaking with laughter.
+
+"It's me, Boss dear!  Don't look so scared, but I'm drunk as a fool.
+How many of them awful peaches did you eat, Missis?"
+
+"Only one," I said.
+
+"And you, Boss?"
+
+"Only one.  How many did you eat?"
+
+"Only half a one, but I finished all the juice in the dish--"
+
+"Juice!" I cried.  "Why, Mary, that was brandy and kirschwasser, and
+two or three other things."
+
+"Don't I know it?  But I never thought, Missis dear, I came here to
+rubber at that fight between Miss Farquhar and the little blister--"
+
+"Mary!"
+
+"Not a word more, Missis dear, if you don't like it!  But anyhow I came
+here to--rest myself, and I began absent-mindedly to take a sip out of
+this big spoon here, and soon it was all gone.  Then when you all went
+into the other room, I tried to get up, but my legs didn't want to,
+and, be the powers, they haven't wanted to since, though I've tried 'em
+every two minutes or so.  I've just set here, helpless as a new-born
+babe that can't roll over in its crib.  I meant to flag the first one
+of you that went past the door, for if somebody would prop me up in
+front of the sink, I could begin on a pile of dishes there big enough
+to scare a dog from his cats."
+
+Aubrey and I leaned against each other in silent but hysterical
+delight.  Mary was deeply pleased to see us so diverted.
+
+Her legs recovered sufficiently before we left for her to walk to the
+sink, while we went back to our guests.
+
+Every one was leaving, and Artie was taking Cary home.  I looked to see
+how Flora took it, but her appealing blue eyes were fixed in their most
+appealing way upon the Also Ran, who was plainly undergoing thrills of
+exquisite torture therefrom.  Jimmie gave one look at the tableau, and
+turned toward the door with his tongue in his cheek.
+
+
+After that curious evening, there seemed to be a tremendous emotional
+upheaval.  Artie hardly came near Flora, and when he did call, appeared
+to derive much satisfaction from gazing at her with a quizzical look in
+his eyes which seemed to annoy her excessively.  The Also Ran was
+omnipresent, and was instant in season, out of season.  But instead of
+arousing Artie's jealousy, this seemed only to amuse him.
+
+Finally the cause of Artie's visits developed.   He blurted it out to
+me one day with the red face of a shamed schoolboy.
+
+"Faith, I wish you'd do me the favour to ask Cary Farquhar here some
+evening, and let me know!  I've been going there till I'm ashamed to
+face the butler, but I never can see her alone, and the last two times
+she has sent down her excuses, and wouldn't see me at all."
+
+I could have squealed for joy, but, mindful of Cary's dignity, I said:
+
+"I don't believe she'd come, Artie.  I'm afraid--"
+
+"Afraid that she'd suspect that I would be here too?  I don't believe
+I've made it as plain as that!" he interrupted.
+
+"Do you mean to say that you are really and truly--?"
+
+"I mean just that," he said, with a new earnestness in his manner, that
+I never had noted before.
+
+"Oh, Artie!" I cried.  "I'm _so_ glad!  But what if she's--"
+
+"Don't say it!  It makes me cold all over to think of it.  That's why I
+want you to ask her here.  I've _got_ to see her.  Why, Faith,
+she's--really, Faith, she's the _only_ girl in the world, now _isn't_
+she?"
+
+"So I've thought for years!" I cried, warmly.
+
+"Talk about love being instantaneous," said Artie, plunging his hands
+into his pockets, and striding up and down.  "I've loved her and loved
+her _hard_ ever since she explained what love meant to her that night
+at your dinner.  Why, if I could get her to love _me_ that way, I'd be
+richer than John D!  But shucks!  She never will!  What am _I_, I'd
+like to know, to expect such a miracle?"
+
+"You're very nice!" I stuttered, in my haste, "and just the man for
+her, both Aubrey and I think, but I'll tell you where the trouble is.
+She thinks you belong to Flora."
+
+"Never!" replied Artie, vehemently.  "I never _thought_ of marrying
+Flora.  She--well, she sort of appealed to me--you know how!  She
+wanted me to help her to understand golf.  She said it made her feel so
+out of it not to know what people were talking about who played the
+game--you know she was a poke at college, and didn't go in for
+athletics at all.  Well, you can understand it when you look at her.
+_She_ couldn't get into a sweater and a short skirt and play
+basket-ball, now could she?  She'd be wanting some man always about to
+hold her things or pitch the ball for her.  She is such a dependent
+little thing.  Then she had always wanted to study law and her people
+wouldn't let her--don't blame 'em for it!--but she wanted me to help
+her to understand it just for practice, she said, so I tried to.  But
+as to _marrying_ her!  Well, to tell the truth--she--er--she does
+things--I mean, I think her emotions are a little too volcanic to suit
+_me_, and I'm no prude.
+
+"You'll tell Cary this, won't you, Faith?  All but that last.  Explain
+how I came to get tangled up with the girl.  You can do it so she won't
+suspect that you're working for me.  You can bring it in casually,
+without bungling it.  Tell her I never gave a serious thought to Flora
+in my life."
+
+"I will, and I'll get her here for you!" I cried, as he rose to go.
+
+I followed him to the door, and as I closed it after him the door of
+the butler's pantry opened noiselessly, and there stood old Mary with
+her finger on her lip.  She motioned me to precede her, and she
+followed me down the hall to my room and into it, carefully closing the
+door behind her.  "Missis," she whispered, kneeling down beside my
+chair.  "Scold me!  Do!  I've been made the real fool of by that little
+blister.  Lord, if I wouldn't like to take her across my knee with a
+fat pine shingle in my good right hand.  Listen!  She heard you at the
+telephone, and knew you expected Mr. Beguelin this afternoon, so she
+comes to me just after lunch and she says to me, 'Mary, Mr. Beguelin is
+coming this evening, so I think I'll take a little nap on the couch if
+you'll cover me up with the brown rug.'  The brown rug, see?  Just the
+colour of the couch, and the one I always keep put away for the Boss.
+Of course I couldn't refuse after she said you said to give it to her--"
+
+"I didn't," I interrupted.
+
+"I know it.  I know it now!  But the little devil knew that I was going
+out, and that you would answer the door yourself--"
+
+"Mary!" I shrieked, in a whisper.  "She wasn't in there all the time,
+was she?"
+
+"That's just what she was!  Listening to every word you said.  I just
+came in a minute ago, or I'd have let you know.  But he got up to go,
+just as I had my hand on the door-knob."
+
+"What shall I do?" I murmured, distractedly.  Then, after a pause, I
+said, "Perhaps she was asleep and didn't hear!"
+
+Mary gave me such a contemptuous look that I hurriedly apologized.
+
+Then the Angel came in, and I told Mary to go, and then I told him
+everything.  He thought quite awhile before speaking.
+
+"Do you care for her very much, Faith dear?" he said, in his dear,
+gentle way.
+
+"If she has done the abominable thing that Mary says, I'll--hate her!
+I'll turn her out of the house!" I cried, viciously.
+
+"Ah!" said Aubrey, in a satisfied tone.  He knows I wouldn't, but it
+does do me so much good to threaten to do the awful things I'd like to
+do if I were a cruel woman.
+
+He rose and left the room.  I started to follow him, but he waved me
+back.
+
+"I won't be gone a moment.  Wait for me here."
+
+I waited three or four years, and then, when I had grown white-haired
+with age, he came back.
+
+"Begin at the beginning, tell everything, and don't skip a word," I
+demanded.
+
+"Well," he began, obediently.  "She was sobbing gently--not for effect
+this time.  I went in softly, and asked her what the matter was.  She
+said she had been out all the afternoon to see a friend who had just
+been obliged to place her mother in a lunatic asylum, and she was
+crying for sympathy.  Then, as she saw me look at my rug, she said Mary
+had left the rug out for her to take a nap early in the afternoon, and
+that she had intended to, but had decided to go out instead.  Now what
+I object to is the style of her lying.  I admire a good lie, but a
+clumsy, misshapen, rippled affair like that one is an abomination in
+the sight of the Lord."
+
+I stood up with a flaming face.
+
+"Don't get excited," said Aubrey.  "She is going home to-morrow.  Keep
+calm to-night, and the next time you see Artie, he will relieve all
+your feelings by what he will say."
+
+"Why?  What does he know?"
+
+"Well, the Also Ran admires athletic girls, you know, not being able to
+sit astride a horse himself, and through his boasting Artie has
+discovered that Flora is a crack golf player--won the cup for her
+college in her junior year."
+
+I fell on the bed in a fit of hysterical laughter.
+
+"If that's the way you are going to take it, I feel that I can tell you
+the worst," said Aubrey, with a relieved face.  "The fact is, I believe
+that that girl has a game on with the Also Ran."
+
+"Oh, _no_, Aubrey!" I cried.  "I know that she is too desperately in
+love with Artie to care about anybody else.  She is so fascinating I
+have but one fear, and that is that Artie will come under her sway
+again.  If he does, Cary would never forgive it."
+
+"You are barking up the wrong tree, my dear," said my husband.  "It is
+far more likely that Artie has already gone too far with Flora for Cary
+to forgive, and that's why she won't see him."
+
+At that, I tossed my head, for I felt that I knew how both Cary and
+Flora loved better than Aubrey did.  Flattering myself, also, that I
+knew men pretty well, I had my doubts about the strength of Artie's
+character.  It takes real courage for a man to be true to one woman, if
+another woman has pitted her fascinations against him.
+
+I intended to avoid Flora, but I found her lying in wait for me, and
+beckoning me from the doorway.  I went in, and at once, in order to
+seem natural, remarked upon her red eyes.  But it seems that that was
+exactly what she wanted me to do.  The girl had no pride.  She _wanted_
+me to pity her.
+
+"I'm ready to kill myself!" she cried.  "I am perfectly sure that Artie
+has only been flirting with me and that some one has come between us.
+You can't want Cary to have him, or why did you invite me here, and
+arrange for me to see so much of him, and try so hard to bring us
+together?  You are not two-faced like that, I hope?"
+
+I was too bewildered to speak.  Yet how could I answer her questions?
+Before I left her, I was convinced that it was all my fault.  I told
+Aubrey so.
+
+"Nonsense!" he said, quite roughly for him.  "I think Mary's name for
+Flora is a good one.  She is a little blister."
+
+"No," I said, "she is not bad at heart.  She is simply an impulsive,
+uncontrolled little animal, and more frank in her loves than most of
+us.  That's all."
+
+I saw the Angel set his lips together as if he could say something if
+he only dared, but his way of managing me is to give me my head and let
+circumstances teach me.  He never forces Nature's hand.
+
+Flora's visit was to have terminated the next day, but, to Aubrey's
+intense disgust and my utter rout, she begged for just three days more,
+and before I knew it I had consented.  As I hurriedly left the room
+after consenting, I turned suddenly and met her gaze.  Her eyes were a
+mere slit in her face, so narrowed and crafty they were.  And the look
+she shot at me was a look of hatred.
+
+Too bewildered by this curious girl's inexplicable actions to try to
+unravel my emotions and come to a decision regarding her, I kept out of
+her way all I could.  I was simply waiting--waiting impatiently for the
+three days to pass.  I only hoped that Artie would not come again while
+she was here.
+
+But, alas, the very next morning I was at the telephone when I heard
+Flora run to the door to let somebody in, and before I could speak I
+heard her say, in that surprised, complaining tone of hers, "Aren't you
+going to kiss me?" and then--well, I got up and slammed the door so
+hard that the key fell out.
+
+What a fool Artie was?  What fools _all_ men were, not to be able to
+keep faith with a woman, and such a woman as Cary Farquhar!  I rushed
+from the study into my room, and burst into a storm of tears, in the
+midst of which Aubrey found me.
+
+"Poor little Faith!  Poor, discouraged, little match-maker!" he said,
+smoothing my hair.  But at that last I sat up and shook his hand off.
+
+"It's so _disgusting_ of him!" I stammered.  "If you could have heard
+him when he was talking about Flora!"
+
+"How do you know it was Artie who came in?" said Aubrey, gently.
+
+I opened my mouth and simply stared at him.  Then I went to the glass,
+smoothed my hair and straightened my belt.
+
+"Where are you going?" asked my husband.
+
+"I am going to _see_!" I exclaimed.  "And if it _isn't_ Artie--if she
+is kissing every man that comes into this house, I'll--I'll _kill_ her."
+
+"What!  You'll kill her if you find that Artie is not the faithless
+wretch you were crying about?"
+
+"Oh, Aubrey!  How _can_ you?" I cried.
+
+He tried to catch me as I flew past, but I eluded him, and started
+firmly down the long hall.  But in spite of myself, my feet dragged.
+What was Flora attempting?  Did she hate me as her look implied?  Did
+she love Artie as she declared, or was she simply endeavouring to get
+married, and so save herself from a life of teaching, which she openly
+detested?
+
+I kept on, however, goaded by my righteous indignation.  To my
+astonishment I found, not Artie, but the Also Ran, with Flora frankly
+in his arms.
+
+They sprang up at my swift entrance, and the man had the grace to look
+furiously confused.  Flora never even changed colour.  I asked no
+questions.  I simply stood before them in accusing silence.  But my
+look was black and ominous.  Flora gave one swift glance at my
+uncompromising attitude, and then, with a modesty and grace and sweet
+appealing humility impossible to describe, she came a step toward me,
+holding out her arms and saying, plaintively:
+
+"Won't you congratulate me?  We are engaged."
+
+I was struck dumb--that is, I would have been struck dumb, if I had not
+been rendered not only speechless, but unable to move by the actions of
+the man.  Entirely unmindful of my presence, he sprang toward Flora,
+stammering, brokenly:
+
+"Do you mean it, dear?  Have you decided already?  You said six months!
+You are sure you mean it?"
+
+Then, not seeing the angry colour flame into Flora's pale, calm face,
+he turned to me, saying, brokenly:
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Jardine!  She has teased me so!  I never dreamed she would
+decide so quickly.  And I--you will forgive me! but I love her so!"
+
+I looked away from his twitching face to Flora, and mentally resolved
+never to call him an Also Ran again.  He did not deserve it.  I am
+seldom sarcastic, but I knew Flora would understand.
+
+"Flora," I said, distinctly, "you are to be congratulated."
+
+Then I turned and left them.
+
+The very day that Flora left, Cary came back to me.
+
+"Well," she said, tentatively, "what do you think of her?"
+
+"Well," I answered, cautiously, "I don't know."
+
+Cary looked at me in disgust.
+
+"Your loyalty amounts to nothing short of blindness and stupidity," she
+remarked, severely.  "As for me, I am going to look at the nest the
+viper has left."
+
+So saying, she got up and went into the blue room, Aubrey and I meekly
+following.
+
+Pinned to the pillow was a note directed to me.  Cary unpinned and
+handed it to me.
+
+"Cleverest and best of women," it began, "Many thanks for your
+delightful hospitality.  I have enjoyed it to the full--far more,
+indeed, than you know.  Look under the mattress of this bed and you
+will understand."
+
+We tore the bed to pieces without speaking.  Then Aubrey and Cary
+looked at each other and laughed.
+
+"_Now_ will you believe," said Cary.
+
+There were cigarette-boxes full of nothing but butts and ashes.  There
+were three of my low-cut bodices.  There were some of Aubrey's ties and
+a number of my best handkerchiefs.
+
+I said nothing.  I simply stared.
+
+"We all knew of these things, Faith dear," said Aubrey, "but even if
+you had caught her wearing your clothes or smoking, we knew she would
+lie out of it, so we waited."
+
+"We knew she hated you so that she couldn't help telling you," added
+Cary.
+
+"Hated me?" I murmured.  "What for?"
+
+Cary blushed furiously, and looked at Aubrey.
+
+"Has Ar--  Have you--" I stammered, eagerly.
+
+Cary nodded and Aubrey looked wise.  Then Cary and I rushed for each
+other.
+
+While we still had our arms around each other crying for joy, Mary
+appeared at the door with her apron filled with the neat little jars of
+jellies and marmalades I had got for Flora's breakfasts.  They had not
+been opened.  Mary regarded me with grim but whimsical defiance.
+
+"The little blister never got a blamed one of 'em, Missis!" she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE PRICE OF QUIET
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie were among our frequent visitors in the new
+apartment.  Jimmie can never realize that I am really married, and in
+view of our manifold travelling experiences together he regards the
+Angel with an eye in which sympathy and apprehension are mingled.
+
+His congratulations at the wedding were unique.  "I'd like to
+congratulate you, old man," he said, wringing the Angel's hand, "but
+honestly I think you are up against it."
+
+To me at their first call he said:
+
+"What will you do with such a man--you, who have gone scrapping through
+life, browbeating gentle souls like myself into giving you your own way
+on every point, and letting you ride rough-shod over us without a
+protest?  _He_ requires consideration and tact and a degree of
+courtesy--none of which you possess.  And you can't drag him away from
+his writing to go to the morgue or a pawn-shop with you the way you did
+me in Europe.  And most of all he must have quiet.  Gee whiz!  There
+will be hours together when you must hold your tongue.  You'll die!"
+
+"No, I won't," I declared.  "You don't know him.  He is an Angel."  And
+with that the argument closed, for Jimmie went off into such a fit of
+laughter that he choked, and his wife came in a fright to find me
+pounding him on the back with unnecessary force.
+
+"But why," said Jimmie, when order had been restored, "did you take an
+apartment, when Aubrey's chief requirement is absence of noise!
+Furthermore, why do you live in New York, that city which reigns
+supreme in its accumulation of unnecessary bedlam?"
+
+"Ah, we have thought of all those things," I said, proudly.  "First, we
+avoided a street paved with cobblestones.  Second, we took the top
+floor.  Third, there are no houses opposite--only the Park."
+
+"But best of all," said the Angel, speaking for the first time, as
+Jimmie noted, "it is in the lease that no children are allowed, for
+children, after all, are the most noise-producing animals which exist.
+So if an apartment can be noise-proof--"
+
+"Exactly," cut in Jimmie.  "If!"
+
+"That's what I say--if it can," said the Angel, "this one should prove
+so.  Faith and I certainly took sufficient pains in selecting it."
+
+"Well, I don't want to discourage you," said Jimmie, and then, after
+the manner of those who begin their sentences in that way, he proceeded
+to discourage us in every sort of ingenious fashion which lay at his
+command.  Verily, friends are invaluable in domestic crises!
+
+Nevertheless, his gloomy prophecies disturbed us.  We tried to make
+light of our fears--to pooh-pooh them--to pretend a scorn for Jimmie's
+opinions, which in secret we were far from feeling, for the fact
+remained that the Jimmies were experienced and we were not.  "Living in
+an apartment," Jimmie had declared, "is like driving.  You may have
+perfect control over your own horse, but you have constantly to fear
+the bad driving of other people."
+
+These words kept ringing in our ears.  We never forgot for a moment
+that there were people under us.  We crept in gently if a supper after
+the theatre kept us out until two in the morning.  We never allowed the
+piano to be played after ten in the evening nor before breakfast.  We
+gave up the loved society of our dog, and boarded him in the country
+because dogs, cats, and parrots were not allowed.
+
+But day by day we found that each one of these self-inflicted maxims
+was being violated by all the other residents.  Singing popular songs,
+a pianola, half a dozen fox terriers, laughing and shouting good nights
+in the corridors kept us awake half the night, and worst of all, what
+we patiently submitted to as visitors with children, we, to our horror,
+discovered were residents with children, and children of the most
+detested sort at that.  Five of these hyenas in human form lived below
+us.  Their parents were of the easy-going sort.  They had all come from
+a plantation in Virginia, and they had brought their plantation manners
+with them.
+
+Now, ordinary children are bad enough, and even well-trained ones at
+that, in the matter of noise, but the noises made by the Gottlieb
+children were something too appalling to be called by the plain,
+ordinary word.  They had never learned to close a door.  They slammed
+it, and every cup and saucer on our floor danced in reply.  When their
+mother wanted them, she never thought of going to the room they were in
+to speak to them.  She sat still and called.  They yelled back defiant
+negatives or whining questions, and then the negro nurse was sent, and
+she hauled them in by one arm, their legs dragging rebelliously on the
+floor and their other arm clutching wildly at pillars or furniture to
+delay their reluctant progress.
+
+They had a piano, and all five of them took piano lessons.  Out of the
+kindness of their hearts they invited the three children who lived
+opposite them on the same floor to practise on their piano, so that
+from seven in the morning until nine at night we were treated to
+five-finger exercises and scales.  Their favourite diversion was a game
+which consisted of the entire eight racing through their apartment,
+jumping the nursery bed, and landing against the wall beyond.  They had
+hardwood floors and no rugs.
+
+And the Angel must have quiet in which to write!
+
+We discussed the situation, and resolved to take action.  Move?
+Certainly not!  We had done our best in taking this apartment, and we
+modestly felt that our best was not to be sneezed at.  We would make
+the other people move,--the impertinent people who had dared to produce
+children off the premises, and then to introduce them ready-made in a
+non-children apartment-house.  Of course a landlord could not protect
+himself against the home-grown article, so to speak, but he could
+defend both himself and us against articles of foreign manufacture, and
+so flagrantly, as evidenced by the names of these "made in Germany."
+
+Other noises which stunned us were remediable by other means.  For
+example, the janitor of the apartment-house which stood next had a
+pleasant little habit of three times a day emptying some dozen or more
+metal garbage-cans in the stone-paved court, and as these with their
+lids and handles merrily jingled back into place, a roar as if from a
+boiler factory rose, reverberating between the high buildings until,
+when it reached the sensitive ears of the Jardines, it created
+pandemonium.
+
+At such times the Angel used to look at me in dumb but helpless misery.
+I tried bribing the janitor, but they changed so often I couldn't
+afford it.  Then, without a word to the Angel, I appealed to the Health
+Department.  I made a stirring plea.  I set forth that not only our
+health, but our lives (by which I meant our pocketbooks, because the
+Angel could not write in a noise), were threatened, and I implored
+protection.
+
+An Irishman answered.  God bless soft-hearted, pleasant-spoken
+Irishmen!  This one rescued us from a slow death by torture.  He was
+amenable to blarney.  He got it.  The result was that never again did
+any of the serial of janitors, which ran continuously next door, empty
+garbage-cans in the court.
+
+Rendered jubilant by this victory, we confidently prepared to meet the
+agents of our building.  But before we could arrange this, Considine,
+the novelist who had come to New York for the winter, called.  He was
+one of the Angel's dearest friends, and we greeted him with effusion.
+
+"I've come to say good-bye," he said at once.  "I'm off to-morrow for
+my farm."
+
+"For a visit?" I cried, unwilling to believe the worst.
+
+"No, for good.  I'm done.  I'm finished.  New York has put an end to
+me!"
+
+"Why, how do you mean?" we asked, in a breath.
+
+"The noise!  The blankety, blankety, et cetera noise of this ditto
+ditto town!  The remainder of these remarks will be sent in a plain,
+sealed envelope upon application and the receipt of a two-cent stamp!"
+
+The Angel and I looked at each other.  We dared not speak.
+
+"How--why--" I faltered at last.
+
+It was all Considine needed--perhaps more than he needed--to set him
+going.
+
+"I came here under contract, as you know.  I was behindhand in my work,
+but I hoped that the inspiration I would receive from the society of my
+fellow authors would give me an impetus I lacked in the country.  There
+I often have to spur myself to my work.  Here I hoped to work more
+steadily and with less effort.  Ye gods!"  He got up and strode around
+the apartment.  "Ye gods!  What fallacies we provincials believe!  I
+was in heaven on my farm and didn't know it!  And from that celestial
+paradise of peace and quiet and tranquillity of nature, I deliberately
+came to this--with a view of bettering my surroundings!  When I think
+of it--when I consider the money I have spent and the time I have
+lost--" he stopped by reason of choking.
+
+"Why, do you know," he began again, squaring around on the Angel, "I've
+spent twenty thousand dollars on that apartment of mine, trying to make
+it sound-proof so that I could make ten thousand by writing!  I rented
+the apartment below me--had to, in order to get a fellow out whose son
+was learning the violin.  I've bribed, threatened, enjoined, and at the
+last a subway explosion of dynamite broke all the double windows and
+mirrors, knocked down my Italian chandeliers, and--people tell me I
+have no redress!  Now they have started some kind of a drilling machine
+in the next block that runs all night, and I can't sleep.  New York to
+live in?  New York to work in?  Why, I'd rather be a yellow dog in
+Louisville than to be Mayor of New York!"
+
+But before he could go the bell rang and Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie walked in,
+so then Considine came back for ten minutes, and stayed two hours.
+
+We told them what we had been discussing, and then we all took
+comfortable chairs.  Cigars and tall glasses with ice and decanters and
+things that fizz were produced, and, as Jimmie said, "we had such a
+hammerfest on the City of New York as the old town hadn't experienced
+in many a long day."
+
+But then, when you come to think of it, didn't she deserve it?
+
+In New York the elevated trains thundering over your head and darkening
+the street, surface electric cars beneath them being run at lightning
+speed, the street paved with cobblestones over which delivery carts are
+being driven at a pace which is cruelty to animals, form a combination
+of noises compared to which a battery of artillery in action is a
+lullaby, and which I defy any other city in the world to equal.  A hen
+crossing a country lane in front of a carriage, squawking and
+wild-eyed, is a picture of my state of mind whenever I have a street to
+cross.  Yesterday there were two street-car accidents and one runaway,
+which I saw with my own eyes in an hour's outing, and I had no sooner
+locked myself in my sixth-floor apartment with a sigh of relief at
+being saved from sudden death when a crash came in the street below,
+and by hanging out of the window I saw that an electric car had struck
+a plate-glass delivery wagon in the rear, upset it, smashed the glass,
+thrown the horse on his side, and so pushed them, horse, cart, and all,
+for a quarter of a block before the car could be stopped.  I shrieked
+loud and long, but in the noise of the city no one heard me, and all
+the good it did was to ease my own mind.
+
+New York is a good place to come to, to be amused, or to spend money,
+but as a city of terrific and unnecessary noises, there is not one in
+the world which can compare to it.
+
+Scissors-grinders are allowed to use a bugle--a bugle, mind you, well
+known to be the most far-reaching sound of all sounds, and intended to
+carry over the roar of even artillery, else why is it used in a battle?
+So this bugling begins about seven in the morning, and penetrates the
+most hermetically sealed apartments.  Then the street-cleaners, the
+"White Wings," garbage and ash-can men begin their deadly rounds, and
+the clang of dashing empty metal cans on the stone-paved courts and
+areas reverberates between high buildings until one longs for the
+silence of the grave.
+
+The noise and shock of blasting rock is incessant.  They are blasting
+all along the Hudson shore and in Central Park.  It sounds like
+cannonading, and the succession of explosions sometimes wakens one
+before dawn or after midnight with the frightened conviction that a
+foreign fleet is upon us to force us to reduce the tariff.  The
+blasting occasionally goes a little too far, and breaks windows or
+brings down pieces of the ceiling.  Last week it caved in a house and
+broke some arms and legs of the occupants.  One woman went into
+convulsions, and was rigid for hours from the shock, but as nobody was
+killed no action was taken.
+
+Old clothes men are permitted a string of bells on their carts, which
+all jangle out of tune and at once, while street-cries of all
+descriptions abound in such numbers and of such a quality that I often
+wonder that the very babies trundled by in their perambulators do not
+go into spasms with the confusion of it.
+
+Considine and I stated all this with some excusable heat while the
+Angel was serving our guests with what their different tastes demanded.
+It always gives me a feeling of unholy joy seeing Mrs. Jimmie trying to
+join her husband in his low pleasures.  She regarded it as a religious
+duty to take beer when he did while we were abroad, but in England and
+here he takes whiskey and soda, so as champagne is not always on tap in
+people's houses, sometimes she tries to emulate his example.
+
+Have you ever seen anybody take cod-liver oil?  Well, that is the look
+which comes over Mrs. Jimmie's face when the odour of whiskey assails
+her aristocratic nostrils.  Nevertheless she valiantly sits the whole
+evening through with her long glass in her hand.  The ice melts and the
+whole mess grows warm and nauseous, but she hangs on, sipping at it
+with an air of determined enjoyment painful to see.  If she did as she
+would like, she would either hold her nose and gulp it all down at once
+or else she would fling glass and all out of the window.
+
+In vain we all try to make it easy for her to refuse.  If we don't
+offer it she looks hurt, so the kindest thing we can do is to pretend
+we notice nothing, and to let her believe that she is her husband's
+boon companion, since that is her futile ambition.
+
+Jimmie crossed his feet, blew a cloud of smoke into the air, and
+carried on the attack by saying:
+
+"London, Paris, and Berlin all put together cannot furnish the noise of
+New York, while the roar of Chicago is the stillness of a cathedral
+compared to it.  And most of it, I may be allowed to state, is entirely
+unnecessary.  The papers are full of accounts of nervous collapses, the
+sanatoria are crowded, while I never heard as much about insanity in
+the whole of my life elsewhere as I have heard in New York in one year.
+There is not a day in which the papers do not contain some mention of
+insane wards in the city hospitals, but people here are so accustomed
+to it, that no one except a newcomer like yourself would be likely to
+notice it."
+
+Considine nodded.
+
+"I lay fully one-half of it to the incessant noises which prey upon
+even strong nerves for nine months of the year without our realizing
+them," he said, "and these so work upon the nervous system that it only
+takes a slight shock to bring about a collapse, and then no weeks in
+the country, no physic, no tonics can avail.  It means a rest cure or
+the insane ward.  It is typical of our American civilization.  New
+Yorkers are the most nervous people I ever saw.  The children are
+nervous; little street urchins, who should not know what nerves are,
+tremble with nervous tension, while the exodus to the country on Friday
+nights fairly empties the town.   Everybody wants to 'get away from the
+noise,' and it is an undisputed fact that men who have no right to
+allow themselves the luxury take every Saturday as a holiday, so that
+in many lines of business so many men are known to be out of town on
+Saturdays that business is practically suspended on that day except for
+routine work.  This is true to such an extent in no other city that I
+know of, and why?  It is the noise.  Distracted nature clamours for a
+cessation of it, and the unfortunate who cannot afford the luxury must
+pay the penalty.  It is a question for the Board of Health."
+
+"Poor old chap!" said Jimmie.  "It comes hard enough on us common
+people, but how writing chaps like you and Aubrey stand it, I can't
+see.  I should think you'd find New York the very devil to write in."
+
+"In some ways we do," said the Angel, "but it has its compensations.
+For example, not even Paris is so beautifully situated as New York.
+The tall office buildings in the lower end of town look down upon river
+sights and shipping with a broad expanse of blue water and green shores
+which a man would cross the ocean to see on the other side.  The Hudson
+beautifies the West Side.  Central Park is in my eyes the most
+beautiful park I ever saw.  With its rocks and rolling greens, its
+trees and wild flowers, it forms a spot of loveliness that makes in the
+midst of the hot, rushing, busy city a dream of soothing repose.
+Washington Heights is a crowning wilderness looking down upon the city
+from Fort George, while the Sound and a glimpse of the village beyond
+seen through the faint blue haze of distance lend a touch of fairylike
+enchantment.  The Jersey shore and the Palisades are one long drawn out
+joy, so that, turn where you will, you find New York beautiful."
+
+"Then, too," said Mrs. Jimmie, speaking for the first time, "New York
+is old, and say what you will you feel the charm of the established,
+and it gives you a sense of satisfaction to realize that you can't
+detect the odour of varnish and new paint.  New York has got beyond it,
+and has begun to take on the gray of age."
+
+"The churches show this," I cut in.  "They are beautiful
+stepping-places in the rush of city life.  They cool and steady, and
+their history and traditions form a restful contrast to the bustle of
+the marketplace."
+
+"But as to those who worship in these beautiful spots," said Considine,
+"it is safe to say that church parade in Fifth Avenue is an even
+smarter spectacle than church parade in Hyde Park, for American women
+have an air, a carriage, and a taste in dress which English women as a
+race can never acquire.  In Hyde Park on Sunday morning, during the
+season, one will see half a dozen beauties whose clothes are Parisian
+and the loveliness of whose whole effect almost takes the breath away,
+but the general run of the other women makes one want to close one's
+eyes.  In America the average woman is lovely enough to make each one
+worth looking at, while the word 'frump,' which is continually useful
+in England, might almost be dropped from the American language.
+
+"As to manners in New York," he went on, "well, patriotic as I am,
+American manners in public in any city almost make me long for the
+outward politeness and inward insincerity of the Gallic nations.
+Russians and Poles are the only ones I have observed to be alike both
+in public and in private.  In New York street-car etiquette or the
+etiquette of any public conveyance is something highly interesting from
+its variety of selfishness and rudeness."
+
+"That is true," I said, "New York manners are seldom aggressively rude,
+except on the elevated trains.  In other cities you are pushed about,
+walked over, elbowed aside, and often bodily hurt in crowds of their
+own selfish making.  Not so in New York.  Civilization has gone a step
+further here.  In surface cars men never step on you, but they gently
+step ahead of you and take the seat you are aiming for, and if they can
+sit sidewise and occupy one and a half seats, and if you beg two of
+them to move closer together and let you have the remaining space, the
+two men may rise, one nearly always does and takes off his hat and begs
+you to have his place.  Then all the eyes in the car are fixed on
+you--not reprovingly, or smilingly, or in derision or reproach, but
+earnestly, as if you form a social study which it might be worth their
+while to investigate.  Never once during a year's observance of
+surface-car phenomena have I seen a row of luxuriously seated people
+make a movement to give place to a new-comer, no matter how old or how
+well gowned she may be.  Even ladies will sometimes give their seats to
+each other.  But they won't 'move up.'"
+
+"In Denver," said Jimmie, "I once heard a conductor call out 'The gents
+will please step forward and the ladies set closter.'  If I knew where
+that man was I would try to get him a position with the Metropolitan,
+for most of them feel as a conductor said here in New York when I
+jumped on him for not obeying my signal, 'Schmall bit do _I_ care!'"
+
+"Then the cars themselves," I cried, "Aren't they the most awful
+things!  I can earnestly commend the surface cars of New York as the
+most awkward and uncomfortable to climb in and out of that I have ever
+seen.  I use the word 'climb' advisedly, as the step is so high that
+one must take both hands to hoist oneself, while the conductor is
+generally obliged to reach down and seize the ambitious woman by the
+arm to assist her.  The bell rings while you are still on the lower
+step; the conductor says, 'Step lively, please;' the car attains its
+maximum of speed at one jump; the conductor puts his dirty hand on your
+white silk back and gives you a forward shove, and you plunge into the
+nearest seat, apologizing to the people on each side of you for having
+sat in their laps.  Then comes a cry, 'Hold fast,' and around a curve
+you go at a speed which throws people down, and on one occasion I saw a
+woman pitched from her seat.
+
+"The Boston street railway system is the most perfect of any American
+city that I know of.  There they pursue such a leisurely course that a
+Boston woman never rises from her seat until the car has come to a full
+stop.  In fact, Bee and I were identified as strangers in town by the
+husband of our friend who met us at the terminus of one of the
+street-car lines, with his carriage.  His never having seen us, and
+approaching us without hesitation, naturally led us to ask how he knew
+us.  He answered:
+
+"'Oh, I saw you walking through the car before it reached the corner
+and standing on the platform when it stopped, so I said to myself,
+"There they are!"'"
+
+"I can easily believe you," said Considine, "but in saying that the
+etiquette of any public conveyance in New York is interesting from its
+varieties of selfishness, oughtn't you to confine your statement to
+surface-cars, elevated roads, and ferry-boats, and oughtn't you to make
+an exception of that dignified relic of antiquity, the Fifth Avenue
+stage?  The most uncomfortable vehicle going, yet let me give the angel
+his due--in a stage people do move up; everybody waits on everybody
+else; hands fare; rings for change, and pays all of the old-fashioned
+courtesies which went from a busy city life with the advent of the
+conductor, the autocrat of ill manners and indifference."
+
+"Superstition evidently does not obtain in New York on one subject at
+least," said Aubrey, "and that is the bad luck supposing to accrue from
+crossing a funeral procession.  Never in any other city in the world
+have I seen such rudeness exhibited toward the following of the dead to
+their last resting-place as I have seen in New York.  The beautiful
+custom in Catholic countries not only of giving them the right of way,
+but of the men removing their hats while the procession passes, has
+resolved itself into a funeral procession going on the run; the driver
+of the hearse watching his chance and fairly ducking between trucks and
+surface-cars, jolting the casket over the tracks until I myself have
+seen the wreaths slip from their places, and sometimes for five or ten
+minutes the hearse separated from its following carriages by a
+procession of vehicles which the policeman at the crossing had
+permitted to interfere.  Such a proceeding is a disgrace to our boasted
+civilization.  We are not yet too busy nor too poor to allow our
+business to pause for a moment to let the solemn procession of the dead
+pass uninterrupted and in dignity to its last resting-place.  Such
+consideration would permit the hearse to be driven at a reasonably slow
+pace in keeping with the mournful feelings of its followers.  As it is
+now, New York funerals go at almost the pace of automobiles."
+
+"My brother once told me," I said, "that I was so slow that some day I
+would get run over by a hearse.  Not being an acrobat, that fate may
+yet overtake me in New York and yet be no disgrace to my activity."
+
+"I am more afraid of automobiles," said Considine, shaking his head,
+"than I am of what I shall get in the next world.  I wouldn't own one
+or even ride in one to save myself from hanging.   I always 'screech,'
+as Faith says, when my cab meets one."
+
+"You don't know how quickly they can be stopped, Considine," said
+Jimmie.
+
+"That may be," retorted Considine, "but are you going to pad your
+broughams and put fenders on your cab horses?"
+
+"I was in an electric cab not long ago," I said, "and a bicyclist rode
+daringly in front of us.  In crossing the trolley-tracks, his bicycle
+naturally slackened a little, and my careful chauffeur brought the
+machine to a dead stop.  Result that I was pitched out over the
+dashboard and barely saved myself from landing on my head.
+
+"When I was gathered up and put back I asked the man why he stopped so
+suddenly (I admit that it was a foolish question, but as I am always
+one who asks the grocer if his eggs are fresh, I may be pardoned for
+this one), and he answered: 'Well, did you want me to kill that man?'
+I replied that of the two alternatives I would infinitely have
+preferred to kill the man to being killed myself,--a reply which so
+offended the dignity of my Jehu that he charged me double.  I never did
+get on very well with cab-drivers."
+
+Jimmie laughed.  He was remembering the time I knocked a Paris cabman's
+hat off with my parasol to make him stop his cab.  My methods are
+inclined to be a little forceful if I am frightened.
+
+"But New York is a city of resources," I continued.  "There is always
+somewhere to go!  New York only wakes up at night and the streets
+present as brilliant a spectacle as Paris, for until the gray dawn
+breaks in the sky the streets are full of pleasure-seekers; cabs and
+private carriages flit to and fro; the clubs, restaurants, and
+supper-rooms are full to overflowing, the lights flare, and the
+ceaseless whirl of America's greatest city goes on and on.  And nobody
+ever looks bored or tired as they do in England.  We are all having a
+good time, and we don't care who knows it.  I love New York when it is
+time to play."
+
+"Well, we've about done up the old town to-night," said Jimmie, as they
+prepared to leave.  "She has hardly a leg to stand on."
+
+"She deserves it," said Considine, gloomily.  "I'm off.  I'm about to
+desert and go back to my cabbages.  New York won't let you work.  She
+won't help you.  She won't protect you.  She mocks you.  She laughs in
+your face.  I'd rather die than try to work here!"
+
+During every word of this impassioned speech the Angel and I had been
+growing colder and colder.  We could see ourselves just where Considine
+had found himself--driven out of New York by reason of its abominable
+noise.
+
+"And the worst of it is," went on Considine, "is that most of this
+noise is so unnecessary.  It comes from--"
+
+A terrific crash came from down-stairs.  Three doors slammed.  Then
+some one screamed shrilly.  Considine gazed with starting eyes at the
+jingling globes and glasses and actually lost a little colour.
+
+"What is it?" he whispered.
+
+"It is nothing," said the Angel, with a wave of the hand, "but our
+little friends below stairs.  Our neighbour is blessed with five
+charming little olive-branches, who have versatile tastes in athletics,
+and are bubbling over with animal spirits.  We think privately that
+they are the meanest little devils that ever cursed an apartment-house,
+but their noise is dear to their parents, and they would not allow it
+when we fain would boil the children alive or beat them with bed-slats."
+
+Jimmie laughed heartlessly, but Considine took his head between his
+hands.
+
+"They have just illustrated what I was going to say.  Nobody has any
+regard for the rights of others.  Peddlers are allowed horns, and
+cornets, and strings of bells.  Why not allow them to send up poisoned
+balloons to explode in your open windows, and thus call attention to
+their wares?  I wouldn't object a bit more!  Why do parents allow such
+noises?  Have you ever remonstrated with the mother?"
+
+"Oh, yes," said the Angel.  "One day Faith called and apologized to
+Mrs. Gottlieb, but begged to know if she might not take the children
+out herself in order to let me finish a chapter.  But Mrs. Gottlieb was
+justly incensed at any one daring to object to the healthful sports of
+her little brood, and said: 'Mrs. Jardine, my children are in their own
+apartment, and I shall allow them to make all the noise they wish.'"
+
+"And the next day," I broke in, excitedly, "she bought the three girls
+tin horns and the boys drums!"
+
+Considine ground his teeth.
+
+"If our wicked ways of life demanded that each of us should bear some
+horrible affliction, but Providence had mitigated the sentence by
+allowing us to choose our own form of mutilation," he said, slowly,
+"instead of giving up an arm or a leg or an eye, I would give up both
+ears and say, 'Lord, make me deaf!'  For, much as I love music and the
+sound of my friends' voices, I believe that I could give up all
+conversation, and for ever deny myself to Grieg and Beethoven and
+Wagner rather than stand the daily, hourly torture of the street sounds
+of a great city."
+
+He looked around at us and real tears stood in his eyes.
+
+"Do you know," said the Angel, answering the look in his friend's eyes,
+"I believe no one on earth understands the anguish those of us who
+compose suffer from noise.  It is not nervousness which causes us this
+anguish.  It is the creating spirit,--the power of the man who brings
+words to life in literature or who brings tones to life in music.  It
+is part of the artistic temperament, and if I ever saw a child start
+and shake and go white at a sudden noise, I should lay my hand on the
+little chap's head and say to his mother: 'Take care of that child's
+brain, for in it lies the power of the creator of something great.
+Teach him above everything self-expression that he may not labour as
+too many do, yet labour in vain.'"
+
+I loved Considine for the way he looked at my Angel after that speech
+and the way he moved toward him and took his hand in his big, soft,
+strong grip.
+
+"I can't stand it!" he declared, standing up.  "I'm going.  I wouldn't
+live in New York if they'd give me the town.  I'm going back to my five
+hundred acres and get in the middle of it with a revolver, and I'll
+shoot anything that approaches!"
+
+But when they had all gone something like dismay seized us.
+
+"He has so much more money than we have," I wailed, "and if _he_ can't
+do anything where do we come in, I'd like to know!"
+
+The Angel paced up and down thoughtfully with his hands behind his
+back,--an attitude conducive to deep meditation in men, I have observed.
+
+"I think I have it," he said, finally.  "Considine is too impulsive.
+He was not firm enough.  Now I got an important letter from the agents
+to-day, saying that they could do nothing about the noise of the
+children.  In the lease it expressly mentions them.  I shall simply
+hold back the rent and see what that produces!"
+
+I was filled with admiration at the Angel's firmness.
+
+The result was speedily produced, such as it was.  Jepson called.  He
+called often.  Then we began to get letters, and finally they
+threatened us with eviction.  It made me feel quite Irish.
+
+Then one day the owner and the agents and their lawyer called, and we
+discussed the matter.  They were affable at first, but as the noise
+from the Gottlieb apartment grew more boisterous, their suavity
+departed, for they realized that our grievance was a substantial one,
+yet they declared they could do nothing.
+
+"But it is in the lease," we protested.  Then they delivered themselves
+of what they really had come to say.
+
+"My dear sir," said the owner, "that lease and those rules can never be
+enforced in this city.  They simply don't hold--that's all."
+
+"Very well," I said, triumphantly.  "If the clauses upon which we took
+the apartment do not hold, then neither does the clause regarding the
+payment of the rent obtain."
+
+They all three broke in together with hysterical eagerness:
+
+"Ah, but that does hold.  You must know that, madam."
+
+"The rent clause is the only clause which the law backs up, is it?  We
+have no redress against your getting us here under false pretences?"
+
+They looked at each other uneasily.  Then their masculinity asserted
+itself.  What?  To be thus browbeaten by a woman?  They looked
+commiseratingly at the Angel for being saddled with such a wife.
+
+They stood up to go.  I looked expectantly at Aubrey.
+
+"Gentlemen," he said, quietly.  "You have heard the noises from the
+surrounding apartments to-day, and you have admitted that they were
+extraordinary.  I declare them not to be borne.  If then, you cannot
+mitigate the nuisance, this apartment will be at your disposal from the
+first of February."
+
+They smiled patronizingly.  The lawyer even laid his hand on the
+Angel's shoulder.  He should have known better than that.
+
+"My dear fellow," he said, benevolently.  "You are liable for the whole
+year's rent--until next October.  You will see by your lease."
+
+Aubrey shook his hand off haughtily.
+
+"Provided the lease is signed," he said, quietly.  "Will you gentlemen
+have the goodness to find my signature on this lease?  I haven't even
+returned it to your office."
+
+They examined it with dropped jaws.  They had not even the strength to
+hand it back to him.  Between them it fell to the floor,--the lease
+whose only binding clause was the one regarding the payment of the rent.
+
+"From the first of February," repeated the Angel, politely.
+
+"But my dear sir," protested the lawyer, recovering first.  "Let us see
+if we cannot adjust this little difficulty.  You sign the lease, for we
+cannot rent such an apartment as this in midwinter.  We would lose
+eight months' rent if you gave it up now, and I will myself personally
+see Mr. Gottlieb in regard to his children's noise.  It really is
+abominable."
+
+"We shall move this month," said Aubrey.  "From the first of February
+this apartment is yours."
+
+"You are very stiff about it," said the owner.  "Why not be reasonable?"
+
+"I am perfectly reasonable," said Aubrey, gently.  "I have listened for
+an hour to the justice you administer to a tenant with a signed lease.
+My reason is what is guiding me now."
+
+He rose as he spoke and moved toward the door.
+
+They glared at us both as they went out.
+
+Aubrey sat and figured for a few moments in silence.
+
+"It has cost us quite a little," he said at last, "to learn that such
+as we cannot live in New York.  We will go into the country where the
+right to live, and to live this side of insanity, is guaranteed, not by
+a lease, but by the exact centre of five acres of ground."
+
+"I have always wanted to!" I cried, with enthusiasm.  "We will be
+commuters."
+
+"We will commute," said Aubrey, pausing to let the fire-engines go by,
+"when necessary."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+MOVING
+
+So we began our search for the Quiet Life and the spot wherein to live
+it.  It must be out-of-town, yet not so far but that the Angel and I
+could get to town for an occasional feast of music or the theatre.
+
+We asked those of our friends who were commuters to exploit the glories
+of their own particular towns, but to our minds there was always some
+insuperable objection.
+
+So one day I took down the telephone-book and looked over the names of
+the towns.  Jersey was tabooed on account of its mosquitoes, and both
+Aubrey and I cared nothing for the seashore.  But the Hudson, with its
+beauty and the delight of its hills rising in such a profusion of
+loveliness back of it, seemed to draw us irresistibly.
+
+"Anything within an hour of New York," said Aubrey.
+
+The telephone-book should answer.  I resolved to read until I got a
+"hunch."  That is not good English, but with me it is good sense, which
+is better.
+
+Finally I found a number--97 Clovertown--Bucks, Miss Susan.  Peach
+Orchard.  The hunch was very distinct.  I could fairly see my
+note-paper with Peach Orchard, Clovertown, stamped on it, for I
+instantly made up my mind that Susan must be asked to rent Peach
+Orchard for a term of years and go abroad.  I felt sure that Europe
+would do her good.  The more I thought of these names, the more sure I
+felt that we had arrived.
+
+My next step was to look feverishly through the Clovertown names for a
+real estate agent.  I found one, and without saying a word to the
+Angel, I called him up.
+
+"Hello, Central.  Give me Long Distance.  Hello, Long Distance.  Give
+me sixty-five Clovertown, please!  Yes!  All right.  Is this Close and
+Murphy?  Well, this is New York.  I want to ask you if Peach Orchard is
+to let.  What?  I say, I would like to know if Miss Bucks would like to
+let Peach Orchard?  She would?  Well, how large is it?  Four?  Oh,
+five?  Is there a good house on the place?  And a stable?  That's nice.
+I see.  Yes.  Well, I would like to see it to-day if I could, but it is
+snowing here.  Not snowing there?  Well, we might try.  What time does
+a train leave 125th Street?  In forty minutes?  Well, my husband and I
+will be on that train.  Oh, that's very nice.  Our name is Jardine--Mr.
+and Mrs. Aubrey Jardine.  Yes, I understand.  Very well.  Good-bye."
+
+I hung up the receiver, and rushed into the dining-room.
+
+"Hurry with luncheon, Aubrey!" I said.  "I've rented a place in
+Clovertown, and we go out to take possession to-day.  We leave in forty
+minutes!"
+
+Aubrey looked up with interest.
+
+"I heard you at the telephone.  You are a crazy little cat," he said,
+but I could see that he was charmed.  We love to do crazy things.
+
+"He's going to meet us at the station with a carriage," I explained as
+I struggled into my coat with Mary's help, and Aubrey pawed madly
+around in the dark closet for overshoes for both of us.
+
+Mary flew about like a distracted hen until she saw us safely started.
+Most people would have gone mad at our erratic proceedings, but nothing
+ever disturbed Mary's equanimity.  In fact, crises fairly delighted
+her.  In an emergency she rose to the heights of Napoleon.
+
+Finally we started, caught the train, and arrived.  The gallant Mr.
+Close met us, true to his word, and in five minutes we were on our way
+to Peach Orchard.
+
+As we drove into the grounds, Mr. Close clapped his hand to his
+forehead with an exclamation.
+
+"What is it?" I said, with a sinking heart.
+
+"I've forgotten the key!"
+
+"Never mind," I said, blithely.  "We can easily get in through a
+window.  My husband used to be a burglar."
+
+It never occurred to me that the poor man would take such an idiotic
+remark seriously, so we neither of us looked at him until we had
+examined every door and window to find if haply one had been left
+unlocked.  Nor did we notice that we were doing all the work until
+Aubrey selected the back hall window as the loosest, and opening his
+knife--the wickedest looking pocket-knife I ever saw, by the way--he
+proceeded deftly to turn the lock of the window and then to raise it.
+
+I was so proud of his cleverness that I turned to ensure the admiration
+of Mr. Close also, but the look I encountered froze the smile on my
+lips and the words on my tongue, for the good man was viewing both
+Aubrey and me with the liveliest horror and distrust.
+
+Aubrey turned also at my sudden silence, and the light dawned upon us
+both in the same instant.
+
+Mr. Close had the grace to look quite sheepish to see us both sit down
+abruptly on the top step and shriek with laughter.  But I am sure, in
+my own mind, that he dismissed the idea of burglars in favour of
+lunatics.
+
+But Peach Orchard was well named, for the old house was set down in the
+very midst of it.  Trees were everywhere, and, indeed, they grew so
+close to the house, and they were so tall, that we could not see the
+house properly.  The short winter afternoon was drawing to a close and
+it looked for a moment as if we would have to come again, when on a
+shelf, good Mr. Close, whose business instincts were keener than his
+sense of humour, found an old lamp with about three inches of oil in
+it.  A feverish search for matches resulted in the discovery that his
+match-box was empty, and Aubrey's held only one.
+
+Right here, let me ask just one question of all the smokers all over
+the world.  Why is it, that, needing them more than you need anything
+else on earth,--home or friends or wife or mother or money or position
+or religion or your hope of heaven,--why is it that you never have any
+matches?
+
+Aubrey's one, which he had been saving, as he told me afterward, to
+light a cigarette on the return drive, proved friendly, and the lamp
+smoked instead.  Armed with this rather unsatisfactory torch, we
+explored, and as we went up and down, in and out of the queer old
+place, built a hundred years ago (Mr. Close said!), we decided to take
+it, and most unwisely said so, thereby paying, as usual, the top price
+for something which we could have got at a bargain if we had waited.
+But such is the perennial foolishness and precipitancy of the Jardines.
+
+Evidently Mary had humoured our going out to Clovertown that afternoon
+as one of our mad excursions only, and had not fathomed the possibility
+of our deciding to live there, for when we came home and gaily
+announced that we had rented Peach Orchard, Mary's jaw fell and her lip
+pouted sulkily.
+
+This lasted during dinner.  We could both see that she intended us to
+notice it and question her, and when the coffee had been served and we
+said she might go, she saw that she must open the ball herself, so she
+fingered her apron and said:
+
+"Missis, I shall be sorry not to go with you to Clovertown, but of all
+the towns along the Hudson, that is the one I can't bear to go to!"
+
+"Why, Mary?" I said, for the first time in my life suspecting her of
+the tricks which we afterward came to know were a part of her.
+
+"Because my oldest sister was killed by the railroad right at the
+station at Clovertown, and I was the one to take her away!"
+
+For about the ten thousandth time Mary held the trump.  I felt crushed.
+I could fairly picture the scene, and I knew that no one could face
+such harrowing memories.  As I gazed at her and she saw I was touched,
+tears began to gather in her eyes, brim over and run down her pink
+cheeks.  I felt fairly faint and sick to think of parting with Mary.
+
+Then something told me to probe the matter.
+
+"When was your sister killed, Mary?" I said.
+
+"Just twenty-two years ago come Washington's Birthday, Missis dear,"
+whimpered Mary, with her apron at her eye.
+
+I began to laugh heartlessly.
+
+"And wasn't that the sister you fought with and hated--the one you have
+told me a dozen times you were glad to know was dead?" I went on.
+
+Mary nodded, rather sheepishly.  I saw she was weakening, so I became
+firm.
+
+"Now, Mary," I said, and it was the first time I ever had spoken
+sternly to her, "put that apron down, and don't let me hear another
+word about your not going to Clovertown.  Of course you are going!  Any
+grief, no matter what, could be cured in twenty-two years,--let alone a
+grief which never was a grief.  And you did _not_ see her after she was
+dead--you told me you wouldn't go.  And what made you the maddest was
+having to pay the funeral expenses when she had a husband who could
+have paid them if he would only work.  So now, you can just stop those
+onion tears," I said, marching haughtily toward the door, followed
+somewhat sheepishly by the Angel, who longed to turn back and mitigate
+my sternness.
+
+The longing finally conquered him.
+
+"Besides, Mary," he said, pacifically, turning back at the door, "we
+couldn't possibly get along without you.  You are absolutely necessary
+to us.  Who, I ask you, would do up my white waistcoat and duck
+trousers if _you_ left?"
+
+Mary beamed at this seductive flattery, and bridled visibly.
+
+"Tell me all about it, Boss dear," she said.
+
+And in so doing she and we both forgot that she had suggested going,
+and nothing more was ever said about it.
+
+Seldom can I look back, however, and recall an instance when we
+obtained more feverish and thrilling joy than from those next few days
+when we mentally improved and furnished Peach Orchard.
+
+With what excitement did we lay rugs and place furniture in our mind's
+eye!  How we appealed frantically to each other to decide whether there
+were three or four windows in the library, and with what complacency
+did we discover that, owing to a shrewd forethought of my own in
+furnishing the smoking and living rooms in our apartment with similar
+curtains, we now had enough for the great, light, airy sitting-room at
+Peach Orchard.
+
+Then we took a long breath and fell with fresh avidity into the subject
+of improvements.  Mr. Close was of the opinion that Susan would do
+nothing--could do nothing rather, as she had a consumptive brother who
+must live in the Adirondacks, and her resources were few.  Therefore,
+we recklessly decided that if she would give us an option on the place
+for another year, we would make the improvements ourselves.  Fools!
+
+Yet why fools!  Never have we so enjoyed spending money, and as Anthony
+Hope says that "economy is going without something you want, for fear
+that sometime you'll want something which probably you won't want," we
+felt upheld and strengthened in the knowledge that we were never, by
+any means, economical.
+
+But the Angel was prospering.  Those who frankly predicted that we
+would starve or be divorced were now glad to sit at our well-set table
+and smoke the Angel's good cigars and sip his excellent wines.  And
+feeling that we might branch out a _little_, we promptly branched out a
+great deal, and nearly went to smash in consequence.
+
+But God watches over children and fools, and we were saved, and sped
+upon our way in a manner so like a special dispensation of Providence
+that no lesson was learned to teach us to be more careful next time.
+In fact, it encouraged us in our recklessness, for in our darkest hour
+the Angel's first play was accepted, and, being staged, was so
+instantaneously a success that he gave up novels altogether and began
+to devote himself to the drama.  He devoted to it, I mean to say, all
+the time he could spare from the improving of Peach Orchard.
+
+Those days, the first of our prosperity and the first of our
+housekeeping in a real house, were the happiest we had ever known.
+Susan had been persuaded to let the place for a term of years with an
+option to buy, so we felt as if we owned it already.  But that is a
+peculiarity of the Jardines.
+
+We tore out the old plumbing, we put in two new bathrooms.  We made a
+laundry out of the storeroom.  We cut doors and threw rooms together
+which never had associated before, and we turned all the windows which
+gave upon the porches into doors, so that we could step out-of-doors at
+will.  We ordered our porch screened entirely, and planned to furnish
+it as a study for Aubrey.  We put paper-hangers, painters, gas,
+telephone, and electric men at work all over the house, and made them
+promise, yea, even swear, to finish their work by a certain time.
+
+But, having, as we thought, learned wisdom by experience, we put no
+faith in their promises, but engaged Mr. Close in person to go every
+day to superintend things.
+
+As the day drew near to move we became most agitated as to ways and
+means.  It seemed a gigantic task to crate and barrel everything and
+move from one town to another, and while we discussed hiring a car,
+Mary interrupted.
+
+"Excuse me, Boss and Missis dear, for putting in my two cents, but you
+surely aren't thinking of sending all the furniture by freight, when
+vans are so much more convenient?"
+
+"Vans?" we cried.  "Will vans move us thirty miles?"
+
+"Fifty, if you like," said Mary, promptly.
+
+"From one town to another?"
+
+"From one State to another, and without taking the pins out of the
+cushions or the sugar out of the bowls."
+
+At once the idea of the sugar-bowls and pincushions fascinated me.  I
+begged Aubrey to investigate, and he agreed with enthusiasm to do it
+the very next day.
+
+"If I might suggest," said Mary again, "all Boss will have to do is to
+telephone to two or three different companies to come and estimate the
+cost.  He won't have to run after 'em any farther than the telephone."
+
+We followed her suggestion, and to our delight discovered that all she
+said was true and more.  They agreed to insure against breakage,
+thieves, and fire; to pack all the stuff in vans one day, take them to
+their warehouse for the early part of the night, and start at one
+o'clock for Clovertown,--agreeing to make the whole distance, unload,
+place the furniture, and unpack the china before leaving that night.
+
+We need not lift a hand.  All we had to do was to go to a hotel for one
+night, and take a train for Clovertown the next morning.
+
+It was almost too easy.  I reflected what "moving" meant to people who
+live in small towns where such conveniences do not exist.  Verily, New
+York might be noisy, but she was a city of superb conveniences.  Only
+Paris excels her in her purveying shops, for in Paris one can buy the
+wing of a chicken only, and that just around the corner, while in New
+York one must buy at least the whole fowl (and pay the price of a house
+and lot in Louisville, let me pause to remark!), but in justice I must
+also add that such luxuries are also "just around the corner."
+
+By implicitly following Mary's advice we saw everything safely placed
+in the vans and move majestically from our door.  Then we betook
+ourselves to the Waldorf, with our "glad rags," as Jimmie had
+commanded, in our suit-cases, and dined in state, and went to Weber and
+Fields afterward.  Jimmie wanted me to hear Weber persuade Lillian
+Russell to invest in oil.
+
+Now at that, the Angel and Mrs. Jimmie simply smiled indulgently.
+While Jimmie and I reeled in our seats and clutched each other's
+sleeves and shrieked (in as ladylike a manner as we could), while tears
+poured down our cheeks and our ribs cramped and our breath failed.
+That is the way Jimmie and I enjoy things.  That is also why we can
+stand it to travel in the same party, and not come home hating each
+other.
+
+But all the time, even in the midst of the fun, my mind turned lovingly
+toward the warehouse where our precious furniture reposed, safely
+packed in those huge red vans.
+
+Jimmie noticed my preoccupation, and said:
+
+"If you could take your mind off coal-scuttles long enough, I would
+like to ask you what you thought of Prince Henry?  Aubrey says you met
+him last week."
+
+"We did, we met him the same day we bought the ice-box," I answered.
+
+"Ye gods!" growled Jimmie, in deep disgust.  "Think of remembering a
+royal prince by the day you bought the ice-box!"
+
+"What most impressed you, dear?" inquired Mrs. Jimmie, sweetly.
+
+"The price!" I answered, cheerfully.  "It was a slightly damaged
+article, so we got it for less than half the original cost of it.  You
+know I do love a bargain, Mrs. Jimmie."
+
+"I meant the prince, dear," said Mrs. Jimmie.
+
+"However, if she prefers to discuss ice-boxes," said Jimmie, politely,
+"by all means, let us bring the conversation down to her level.  It
+will not be the first time I have had to do it."
+
+"I don't care!" I said, stoutly.  "It was far more interesting than
+seeing the prince.  This, you must remember, was our _first_ ice-box.
+The other one was built into the apartment, and we didn't own it."
+
+"I do wish Bee could hear you!" jeered Jimmie.  "Gee, but you will be a
+trial to Bee."
+
+"I always have been," I said.  "She got mad at me just before I was
+married about a thing as foolish as anything _I_ ever heard of.  I had
+calls to pay, and I asked Bee to go with me.  She said she'd go if I'd
+get a carriage, so I said I would, and told her to order it.  But it
+seems that all the good ones were engaged for a funeral, and they sent
+us a one-horse brougham with the driver not in livery.  We didn't
+notice it until we opened the front door.  Then Bee sailed in.  'Why
+are you not in livery?' she demanded.  'I shall certainly report you to
+Mr. Overman.  He ought to be ashamed to send out a driver without a
+livery!'  'If you please, ma'am,' said the man, 'I'm Mr. Overman, and
+rather than disappoint you ladies, as all my men are out, I thought I'd
+drive you myself.'  Well, that was too much for even Bee.  So she
+thanked him, and in we got.  The first house we went to was that of a
+haughty society dame of whose opinion Bee stood much in awe.
+Personally, I thought her an illiterate old bore.  She was newly rich,
+and laid great emphasis upon such things as maids' caps, while tucking
+her own napkin under her chin at dinner.  She followed us to the door
+in an excess of cordiality which amused me, considering everything, and
+there, to our horror, we saw poor old Overman half-way under the horse,
+examining one of its hoofs!  Poor Bee!  I gave one look at her face and
+giggled.  That was enough.  She was so enraged that she wouldn't pay
+another call.  She took me straight home as if I were a bad child, and
+the next day I paid my calls alone."
+
+"And yet," said Jimmie, musingly, "can you or any of us ever forget the
+night that Bee did the skirt dance in Tyrol?"
+
+"Dear Bee!" said Mrs. Jimmie, softly.  "How charming she is!"
+
+"Yet she wouldn't approve of your going to Clovertown," said Jimmie.
+"She hates the bucolic.  Idyls and pastorals are not in it with our rue
+de la Paix Bee.  I'll bet she will never come to see you at Peach
+Orchard."
+
+"Let us hope for the best," said Aubrey.  "It is dangerous to prophesy."
+
+"We're going to keep a cow, Jimmie!" I said, rapturously.
+
+"Well, don't gurgle about it.  You act as if keeping a cow put the
+stamp of the Four Hundred on you.  Did Mary say you might?"
+
+"Mary has given her consent," said Aubrey.  "But I'm wondering how that
+old woman will behave with other servants.  Of course she was all right
+while there was no one else and she was boss of the ranch, but we must
+have two or three now at Peach Orchard, and she is so jealous, I wonder
+if she will let us live with her!"
+
+Well might we have wondered.  Trouble began the very next day.  As we
+went out on the train I noticed that Mary had on her best dress and
+hat.  She had no bag with her, so I wondered how she meant to "settle"
+in such clothes.  The Angel and I had on our worst.
+
+I comforted myself with the reflection that there would not be very
+much dirty work to do.  This would in reality be a kid-glove moving,
+for Mr. Close had telephoned the day before that everything was ready
+for us to move in.  I had even sent a cleaning woman for floors and
+windows.
+
+I had taken the precaution to bring a few silver knives, forks, and
+spoons in my bag.  Then as we got off the train I stopped at a grocery
+and bought a loaf of bread, a tin of devilled ham, one of sardines,
+some butter, and a dozen eggs, so we were at least sure of our luncheon.
+
+We jumped out of the carriage almost before it had stopped, and, while
+Aubrey paid the man, I ran up the steps and into the house.
+
+Such a sight of confusion met my eyes!  The old paper was piled in the
+middle of each floor, and not a new strip on any wall.  One ceiling
+only in the whole house was finished.  Not a hardwood floor had been
+laid.  The lumber was piled in the hall.  Not a chandelier was up.  The
+ragged wires projected from their various holes in ceilings and walls.
+Where was my cleaning woman?  Where were our workmen?  Above all, where
+was the perfidious Mr. Close?
+
+There was no furnace fire, and the water was not turned on.  I ran back
+and Aubrey shouted for the carriage, just turning out of the grounds,
+to come back.
+
+"Go to the plumbers!" I said, incoherently, "and to the electric light
+men, and to the agents, and see where the men are, and bring some
+brooms and buckets and send me a grocer's boy."
+
+He turned away, breathing vengeance.  I felt sorry for Mr. Close.
+
+"And to the telephone company!" I cried, after the departing carriage.
+
+"And to--" but the driver lashed his horses, and I had to give up.
+
+I went back to Mary in her best dress.
+
+"Finished, is it?" she said, sniffing with indignation.  "I suppose the
+agent thought we were flies, and could move in on the ceiling--as
+that's the only thing I can see about the house that's finished!"
+
+"Wait until Mr. Jardine sees the agent!" I said, ominously.  "Then
+something else will be finished, besides the ceiling."
+
+"I hope he'll kill him!" said Mary, pleasantly.
+
+It was a real pleasure to witness the dismay in Mr. Close's face when
+Aubrey returned, bringing him, mentally, by the scruff of the neck.  I
+have seen terriers yanked back to look at things they have "worried" in
+much the same manner that Mr. Close was fetched to Peach Orchard.
+
+"Just look, Mr. Close, if you please," I said, ominously polite.  "You
+telephoned me yesterday and said you had been here personally and seen
+with your own eyes that everything was finished and the house in
+perfect readiness for us to move in."
+
+Mr. Close refused to meet my accusing eye.  He turned green.
+
+There are more ways than one of calling a man a liar.  And some are
+safer than others.
+
+"Did you really have the smoke test put through the plumbing as you
+said you did?" I asked.
+
+Mr. Close eagerly produced the bill.
+
+Plumber's bills are conclusive evidence.
+
+"Did you have the range cleaned and the water-back examined?" demanded
+Aubrey.
+
+Mr. Close swore that he did.  Aubrey led him captive around the house
+and showed him the confusion thereof, Mary grimly following.  I think
+Close preferred Aubrey to me, and me or anybody to Mary, for Mary's
+very spectacles were bristling with anger.  She could see herself, in
+her best dress, having to clean up that mess so that the furniture
+could be moved in.
+
+Then Aubrey's men began to arrive.  The man with the chandeliers.  The
+carpenters to lay the floors.  The man from the water office.  My negro
+cleaning woman and the grocer's boy.  Fortunately, the cleaning woman
+had brought a broom, a mop, and a bucket.
+
+As there were no fires, Aubrey and Mr. Close made one in the furnace;
+Mary and the grocer's boy--or rather the grocer's boy under Mary's
+direction--built one in the range, while I set the woman to sweeping
+one floor for the carpenters to begin on.
+
+Suddenly I heard hurried feet running up the cellar stairs.  The water
+man had turned the water on from the street, and it was gaily pouring
+into the cellar.  Mr. Close is a fat man, but he ran like a jack-rabbit
+to that water main, and shut it off.  Then without daring to
+face--Mary, he started to town for a plumber.
+
+He had not been gone half an hour when the water-back blew up.
+Fortunately, no one was in the kitchen at the time, but the cleaning
+woman turned from black to a dirty gray with fright, and without
+further ado went home.  I can't say that I blamed her.  Aubrey was busy
+putting out the furnace fire and bailing out the cellar, so he did not
+know of that defection.
+
+However, a culmination of such calamities, instead of smiting me to the
+earth, aroused every drop of fighting blood in my whole body.
+
+I went out on the porch to think it over, and as I thought I began to
+laugh.  I laughed until Aubrey heard me and thought I was crying.  He
+came hurrying out, with a face full of anxiety, saying, before he saw
+me:
+
+"Never mind, dear!  I know this is hard on you, but--"
+
+"Well, I'll be--!"
+
+Both of those remarks were Aubrey's.  He was much relieved, however, to
+discover that I was not cast down by all these disasters.  In fact, our
+moving partook more of the delights of camping out than orthodox
+housekeeping, and I soon discovered expedients.
+
+The only fire which did not bid fair to blow our heads off was one in
+the grate in the hall.  On this we boiled water and made tea, and for
+that first luncheon we satisfied ourselves with sardines and devilled
+ham sandwiches.  But as we were obliged to cook on that grate for six
+days, I may as well record now that we grew into expert cooks,
+attempting eggs in all forms, batter-cakes, hoe cakes, fried mush,
+bacon, ham, chops, toast, and fried potatoes,--in fact, no woman knows
+how much she can cook on a common little hard coal grate until three
+hungry people are dependent on it for three meals a day.
+
+We supplemented this by the chafing-dish.  Aubrey says that I should
+say the grate fire supplemented the chafing-dish, for nobody knows what
+can be done with one--in real, urgent housekeeping, I mean, such as
+ours, until one has tried.  It makes a perfect double boiler, and as
+for a _bain Marie_, well, I used to cream potatoes in the top part, and
+when they were all done but the simmering of the cream to thicken it, I
+used to put tomatoes in the bottom part to stew, and put the potato
+part back on the tomatoes for a cover and to keep hot.  Did you ever
+try that?
+
+The kitchen range was discovered to be ruined, the pipes being
+completely full and solid with rust.  It is a miracle that some of us
+were not killed by the explosion.  Mary cheerfully declared her regret
+that Mr. Close had not been bending over the stove with his lie in his
+throat when the water-back remonstrated.  Mary is quite firm in her
+ideas of making "the punishment fit the crime--the punishment fit the
+crime."
+
+But we enjoyed it--that is, Aubrey and I enjoyed it.  Mary wanted us to
+go to an hotel and stay until things were in order, and send the bill
+to Mr. Close.  But even though her suggestion was made at two o'clock
+in the afternoon and no vans had yet appeared, I was firm in my
+decision to sleep in Peach Orchard that night.
+
+My courage had in the meantime been buoyed up by the fact that the
+telephone had been put in, and my friend, the grocer's boy, had brought
+me reinforcements in the shape of plates, tumblers, pots, pans, brooms,
+buckets, and supplies, and had further completed my rapture by
+promising me a kitten.
+
+About three o'clock, I, as lookout, descried the big red vans, each
+drawn by four horses, at the foot of the hill.
+
+Now Clovertown is not full of hills, rather it consists of hills.  It
+is not quite as bad as Mt. St. Michel, for that is all one, but
+Clovertown consists of a series of small Mt. St. Michels, equally
+steep, precipitous, and appalling to climb, also equally lovely and
+bewitching when once you have climbed.
+
+The moving men seemed to realize their steepness, for they put all
+eight of the horses to one van and bravely started up the hill.  But
+alas, they were New York horses, and only capable of dodging elevated
+pillars and of keeping their footing on icy asphalt.  They were not
+used to climbing trees, as we afterward discovered Clovertown horses to
+be quite capable of doing.  So, after straining and pulling and being
+cruelly urged to a feat beyond their strength, we had our first taste
+of the neighbourliness of the people on the next estate.  Their head
+man, called familiarly Eddie Bannon, came to our rescue.
+
+"Take all them horses off," he said, "and I'll pull you up the hill
+with my team of blacks."
+
+We were grateful, but politely incredulous.  What!  One pair of horses
+accomplish a feat which eight had been unable to do.
+
+I grew feverishly excited in watching the exchange.  It was a picture
+to see the incredulity on the countenances of the van men.  They tried
+not to show it, for that would have been impolite, but Eddie Bannon saw
+it, and grinned at their unbelief.
+
+When the blacks were in the traces, Bannon took the reins.  One of the
+men offered him a long wicked-looking whip, but he spurned it.
+
+"No," he said, "if the blacks won't pull for love, they won't for a
+beating."
+
+So then he spoke to them.  Willing hands started the wheels.  The
+gallant little blacks, looking like a pair of ponies before the huge
+van, seemed to lie flat on their bellies as they strained forward,
+digging their sharp little hoofs into the hillside.  The van gave an
+inch--two!  A foot!  Then urged by their master's voice, and for very
+pride of home and race and breed, the gallant blacks pulled for dear
+life, and in a quarter of an hour the van was at our door, and they
+were switching their tails and stamping their hoofs and shaking their
+intelligent heads in the pride of victory.
+
+As for Bannon, he stroked and praised them in an ecstasy of
+self-vindication, and was refusing the van man's offer to buy them at
+"a hundred dollars apiece more than they cost."
+
+Those horses pulled our three vans up our hill, if you will believe it,
+and seemed rather to enjoy the grind they had on the other horses, so
+that, in a fever of appreciation, I had to go and feed apples and sugar
+to all ten of them, and to remind the blacks that the New York horses
+had been pulling those vans since midnight, all of which I begged them
+to take into consideration, while not in the least depreciating their
+own glorious achievement.
+
+The initiated need not be told how, when hardwood floors are being
+laid, furniture is moved from room to room to accommodate the
+carpenters, and the uninitiated will not be interested at the recital.
+It must be experienced to be appreciated.
+
+We lived through it.  We learned not to object when the ice-box was set
+up in the hall so near the grate that the drip-pan had to be emptied
+every hour, and the iceman had to come twice a day.  We learned to step
+over rolls of rugs and to bark our shins on rocking-chairs and to trip
+over hidden objects with only a pleasant smile.
+
+We screened one porch entirely, and furnished it as a study for Aubrey.
+We had now papered and painted the house from top to bottom.  We had
+put in gas, telephone, and electric light, and when we could no longer
+think of any further way to spend money, we turned our attention to the
+garden.
+
+I longed for old Amos, my uncle's gardener and coachman in Louisville.
+His experience would be invaluable, and as the estate had been divided
+and no one had any use for the old grizzled negro, they let me have
+him.  I adored Amos.  It was he who had attended to all my childish
+pleasures on the plantation when I went there to visit, and, in turn,
+he thought "Miss Faith honey" could do no wrong.  It is a comfort to
+have some one in one's childish memory who thinks one can do no wrong,
+even if it is only a servant.
+
+So old Amos came and made flower-beds, and persuaded us to buy a pair
+of horses in addition to the one we had hitherto modestly used, and
+thus, with the aid of friends' and judicious servants' advice, we were
+by way of being landed proprietors, and came to look upon Peach Orchard
+as an estate.
+
+Then the grocer's boy gave me the promised kitten, a common tiger
+kitten, which we named Mitnick, and soon afterward we acquired not only
+one cow, but several, our especial pride being an imported Guernsey,
+which figures quite prominently in my narrative further on.  And as
+Aubrey's unwonted prosperity continued, we endeavoured not to let our
+riches increase too fast, by spending every cent upon which we could
+lay our hands on the place.  But who, who owns a country place, can
+help it?  Or who would help it if he could?
+
+We raised our own flowers and vegetables regardless of expense.  We
+could have ordered American Beauties from New York every day for what
+our hollyhocks and clove pinks and common annuals cost us.  We planted
+five bushels of potatoes and dug three and a half, which made them come
+to a dollar a bushel more than if we had bought them at the grocer's.
+And as to our milk and cream--I once heard the Angel say to Jimmie when
+they came out for a visit:
+
+"Which will you have, old man?  A glass of champagne or a glass of
+milk?  They both cost the same!"
+
+But what of it?  Weren't they _our_ cows which gave the milk?  And
+weren't they _our_ potatoes which rotted in the ground, and _our_
+chickens which died before we could kill them?  It was the pride of
+ownership which ate into our lives and made us quite sickening to our
+friends whose tastes ran to pink teas and hotel verandas, while we,
+poor fools, lived each day nearer to the soil, and loved more dearly
+the earth which nourished us.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+HOW BEE TRIED TO MAKE US SMART
+
+Bee had spent nearly all the time since we were married in Europe, and
+had never, therefore, paid the Angel and me a visit.  But this very
+afternoon she was to arrive.
+
+The arrival of one's sister need not necessarily mean anything as
+alarming as a smallpox scare, but if you knew the somewhat
+revolutionary methods, adopted with a ladylike quiet and a well-bred
+calm, which characterize Bee's visits to her relatives, you would
+excuse our somewhat flurried preparations to entertain her.  In
+addition to our natural desire to do our best for her, Bee had sent a
+letter clearly setting forth the style of entertainment she expected of
+us, and indicating that no paltry excuses would be taken for our not
+coming up to her wishes.
+
+Aubrey was at first for open rebellion.
+
+"If she will take us as she finds us, Bee will be welcome to come and
+stay as long as she likes," he said, while her letter was still fresh
+in our minds.
+
+"She won't," I said, with conviction.  Bee is my sister, or to speak
+more accurately, I am Bee's sister.  "She will come prepared to make
+radical changes in our mode of living, in everything from our religion
+to the way we have hung the pictures."
+
+Aubrey used one small unprintable word.
+
+"Furthermore," I added, "she will be so smooth and plausible about it,
+that you will not object to carrying out her wishes."
+
+The Angel gave me a look.
+
+"If we carry out her wishes, do you think that will be the reason?" he
+asked, quietly.
+
+"No," I cried, impulsively.  "It will be because as a host or as
+anything else you are an Angel."
+
+But he is also a diplomat, as his next remark will show.
+
+"As we are incapable with such generic instructions," he said, tapping
+Bee's letter with his pipe, "of knowing just how we must make ourselves
+over to suit her, and as Bee is never quite happy unless she is
+managing other people's affairs, suppose we wait until she comes and
+gives us specific orders?"
+
+This was what I considered the height, climax, and acme of hospitality.
+
+"Only," he warned me as we drove to the station to meet her, "try to
+remain, within bounds.  The only thing I ha--criticize about Bee is
+that she makes such a coward of you.  Remember when she tries to
+browbeat you, that _I_ consider your taste and common sense better than
+hers, and that in any stand you take I am back of you, no matter what
+it is."
+
+I pressed the Angel's hand gratefully.  Bee's train was appallingly
+near, and my blissful married independence was rapidly degenerating
+into my former state of jelly-like sisterly dependence.
+
+Bee is one of those persons who, consciously or unconsciously, make you
+feel the moment you meet her the difference between your clothes and
+hers.  I had almost forgotten this, but the second she stepped from the
+train I was invisibly informed of the distance between us.  I had put
+on my best, and Aubrey said I looked very well, but in Bee's first
+sweeping glance at me I felt sure that my dress was wrong in the back.
+
+The carriage drove up, and, as Bee stepped into it, I noticed, that the
+horses were too fat, and that, while old Uncle Amos might be a comfort,
+he certainly was not stylish.  I never had thought of these things
+before.
+
+In other words, Bee brought the city into too close juxtaposition for
+the country to enjoy without a Mark-Tapley effort to come out strong
+under trying circumstances.
+
+Our place, Peach Orchard, was old, rambling, and picturesque.  But it
+was also comfortable.  Both the Angel and I hate the idea of pioneering
+or of doing without city comforts.  So we had put bathrooms in here and
+electric lights there, and, by adding city improvements to a country
+estate, we had made of Peach Orchard a dear old place.  It was a place,
+too, over which some people raved, so I was loth to view it through my
+critical sister's eyes for fear of permanent disenchantment.
+
+But at first Bee was very polite.  She affected an interest in the cows
+and the number of hens sitting and how many more chickens we got than
+the people whose estate adjoins.  She spoke of the butter, which so
+filled me with enthusiasm that I sent down to the dairy and had Mary
+bring up Katie's last churning to show her.  I was so interested in the
+colour of the golden rolls in their cheese-cloth coverings that I did
+not notice Bee's expression until afterward.
+
+At five Bee asked for tea.  There were some hurried whispered
+instructions before we got it.  But we pulled through that all right.
+
+Then Bee said:
+
+"Who is coming out to-night?"
+
+"Coming out where?" I asked, genially.
+
+"Why, to dine.  Surely, you don't dine here alone, just you two, every
+evening?"
+
+I looked at Aubrey, and he looked at me.
+
+"To be sure we do!  Do you think we are already so bored by each other
+that we send to New York for people to amuse us?" I cried, with some
+spirit.
+
+"Oh, not at all!" answered Bee, politely.  "Only, I thought perhaps,
+now that I am here, you would have some one from town for me to talk
+to."
+
+"Why, I'll talk to you and so will Aubrey--"
+
+I stopped in confusion.  Again it was something in Bee's expression, I
+felt the same way when I called her attention to the length of the
+sorrels' tails.  It reminded me that Bee preferred them docked.
+
+"It is your first night with us, so nobody will be here to-night," I
+said, rising to the emergency.  "But to-morrow we'll have somebody.
+I'll ask the Jimmies!"
+
+"Or perhaps you could get Captain Featherstone from Fort Hamilton,"
+suggested Bee.
+
+"That is not likely," I said.  "He has so many engagements."
+
+"You might try him--by telephone," suggested Bee again.
+
+"Certainly, I'll ask him," I said, cordially.
+
+Aubrey pressed my handkerchief into my hand with a meaning twinkle in
+his eyes, and when Bee went in to dress, he said:
+
+"It will be rather nice to see old Featherstone again, don't you think?"
+
+"Yes, if we can get him," I answered.
+
+"You poor little goose," said Aubrey, "don't you know they have it all
+arranged, and that Featherstone won't go beyond earshot of the
+telephone until he receives your invitation?"
+
+To be sure!  I had forgotten Bee's methods.
+
+Of course it turned out as Aubrey predicted--it always does.  Captain
+Featherstone accepted with suspicious alacrity.
+
+For three days Bee was polite, and I, who am most easily gulled for a
+person who looks as intelligent as I do, was pluming myself upon the
+fact that our modest mode of living was proving agreeable to Bee's
+jaded European palate.  I wondered if she had noticed my housekeeping.
+She had not expressed herself in any way, but I wondered if she had
+observed how scrupulously neat everything was, that there was no lint
+on the floors and what bully things we had to eat.
+
+I was the more eager to know what she thought from the fact that most
+of my friends had not hesitated to say that I couldn't keep house, and
+the Angel would starve.  And once when I wrote home for a recipe for
+tomato soup and one of the girls heard of it, she actually sent me this
+insulting telegram: "Tomato soup!  You!  O Lord!"
+
+Which just shows you.
+
+So, on the third day, on seeing Bee cast a critical look around, I
+said, unable to wait another minute for the praises I was sure would
+come:
+
+"Well, what do you think of us anyway?"
+
+Then I leaned back with the thought in my mind, "Now here is where, as
+Jimmie would say, I get a bunch of hot air."
+
+Bee wheeled around on me eagerly, and I smiled in anticipation.
+
+"Do you really want to know?"
+
+"Of course I do!" I cried, impatiently.
+
+"You asked me, you know," she said, warningly.
+
+"I know I did.  Go ahead.  Tell me."
+
+"Tell you what I think of you?" said Bee, looking me over as if to find
+a sensitive spot for her blow to fall on.  "Well, I think that you are
+the most hopelessly _bourgeoise_ mortal I ever knew."
+
+I sat up.
+
+"_Bourgeois_!" I exploded.
+
+"From a woman with social possibilities," she went on, "you have
+degenerated into a mere housewife.  And you and Aubrey have become
+positively--"
+
+She paused in order to be more impressive.
+
+"Domestic!" she hissed at last with such vehemence that I bit my
+tongue.  As I put in no defence she went on, gathering momentum as she
+talked.
+
+"When I heard that you had come to live in one of the smartest towns
+along the Hudson, where millionaires are as thick as blackberries, I
+said to myself: 'Now they will rise to the occasion.'  But have you?
+No!  I come, fresh from those gorgeous house-parties in England, to
+find you and Aubrey no better than farmers and--satisfied with
+yourselves!  If you could only get my point of view and see _how_
+satisfied you are!"
+
+"We are happy,--that's what it is!" I interpolated, feebly.
+
+"Then be miserable, but progress!" cried Bee.  "Such a state of social
+stagnation as you exist in is a sin against yours and Aubrey's talents."
+
+I was so stunned I forgot to bow at this unexpected compliment.
+
+"Here you are in the midst of smart traps, servants in livery, horses
+with docked tails and magnificent harnesses, perfectly contented with
+fat, lazy horses, an old negro coachman in a green coat, and carriages
+whose simplicity is simply disgusting.  There is only one really
+magnificent thing about Peach Orchard, and that is the dog."
+
+I felt faint.  To have earned the right to live in Bee's eyes only by a
+dog's breadth!  It was mortifying.
+
+"I don't care so much for myself," pursued Bee, comfortably, "but what
+Sir Wemyss and Lady Lombard will say, _I_ don't know."
+
+"Why, they aren't coming here, are they?" I gasped, sitting up.
+
+"They are, if you will invite them.  Of course I have nowhere to
+entertain them, in return for all they did for me, and I thought
+possibly you would ask them here for a fortnight, but since I have seen
+how you live--unless, perhaps, you would be willing to be smartened up
+a bit?"
+
+Bee looked distinctly hopeful.
+
+"What would you suggest?" I asked, huskily.
+
+Bee cleared her throat in a pleased way.
+
+"First of all, let me be assured that I will not be embarrassing you,"
+she said, politely.  "You can afford to--to branch out a little?"
+
+"Yes," I said.  But my pleasure in the admission was not keen.
+
+"Then," said Bee, "I would advise a coachman and a footman in livery.
+I know just where two excellent Englishmen can be got.  Then you want
+all this made into lawns.  You want to exercise the horses more, and
+have their tails docked.  And above all you want a victoria."
+
+"We have got that," I said.  "I was going to surprise you with it.  It
+came this morning."
+
+"Where is it?" cried Bee, standing up and shaking out her gown.
+
+"In the barn, but perhaps--"
+
+"Let's go and look at it!" exclaimed Bee.  Then as we started she laid
+her hand kindly on my arm.  "And please say 'stables,' not 'barn.'  Sir
+Wemyss might not know what you meant."
+
+I giggled at this, for ours is so hopelessly a barn.  Nobody but a fool
+would try to rejuvenate the huge red structure by the word "stables."
+It sheltered the lovely, soft-eyed Jerseys, a score of sitting hens in
+one retired corner, the horses, the feed, the carriages, and farm
+implements.  Stables indeed!
+
+Bee walked straight by all the animals, who turned their heads and gave
+me a welcome after their several kinds, and stood in delighted
+contemplation before the beautiful shining victoria.
+
+"That is a beauty!" she said, at length.  "Aubrey certainly knows
+what's what, even if you don't.  Now I can tell you what has been in my
+mind all day long.  Oh, do leave that cow alone and listen!  Call the
+dog!"
+
+Jack, our snow-white bulldog, came at a word.  Bee beamed on him.
+
+"It is the latest--the very latest fad in London to drive in a victoria
+with a white bulldog on the seat with you!" she said, complacently.
+"And Jack will be simply perfect for the part."
+
+"Shall I train Aubrey to run behind with his tongue hanging out, in
+Jack's place?" I asked.
+
+"Now there you go--rejecting my simplest suggestion!" cried Bee.  "My
+simplest, my smartest, and my least expensive!  This won't cost you a
+penny, and it will attract attention at once."
+
+I closed my eyes for a moment to contemplate just what sort of
+attention we would attract if the dog and I drove to the Station to
+meet Aubrey.
+
+"Suppose we try it now!" suggested Bee.  "Will you have Amos bring out
+the horses?"
+
+Bee is always scrupulously polite about not giving orders to my
+servants direct, although I have begged her to consider them as her
+own.  I always think that a hostess who neglects to make her guests
+feel at liberty to give an order either is not accustomed to servants
+or else stands in too much awe of them.
+
+Jack, the bulldog, assisted in our preparations with much getting under
+our feet and many hearty tail-waggings.  Little he knew what was to
+follow!
+
+Bee carefully gave me my position at the right, and took her own.
+
+"Now," she said, "there are two equally correct ways of sitting in a
+victoria, neither of which you are doing."
+
+I was quite comfortable, but I immediately sat up.
+
+"It depends upon what you have on," Bee proceeded.  "If you are
+tailor-made and it is morning, you sit straight like this.  If it is
+afternoon and you are all of a Parisian fluff, you recline like this
+and put your feet as far out on the cushion as you can.  It shows off
+your instep."
+
+"It comes very near showing off your garter," I said, indignantly.
+"You needn't expect me to lie down like that and put my feet on the
+coachman's back.  Aubrey would have a fit."
+
+"You are positively low," said Bee, straightening herself.  I giggled
+helplessly at her instructions.  They were so beyond my power to carry
+them out properly.
+
+"Can't I sit like this?  Can't I be comfortable?  What's a victoria
+for, anyhow?" I demanded.
+
+"Call the dog!" was Bee's only answer.
+
+I called him.  He came to the step, his tongue hanging out, his stumpy
+tail wagging.
+
+"What'll you have, girls?" he seemed to say.
+
+"Get in here!  Come up, Jack!" I coaxed, patting the seat invitingly.
+
+Jack put one paw on the step, and wagged his tail harder.  Old Amos's
+shoulders shook.
+
+"Don' reckon you all will git dat dorg into de kerredge, Miss Faith,"
+he said.  "Look lake he smell a trick."
+
+It certainly did look as if he smelled treachery, for nothing could
+persuade him to enter our chariot.  Finally the stable-boy lifted him
+bodily.  Bee seized a paw and I his two ears, and thus protesting we
+dragged him to a position between us.  He was badly frightened by such
+treatment, but remembering that I had been his friend in times past,
+his tail fluttered amiably.  I gave a hurried order to Amos to drive
+out quickly, but as the carriage began to move, Jack's big body
+trembled violently, and he lifted up his voice in a howl of protest
+which woke the echoes.  He tried to jump out, but as both Bee and I had
+our arms around him, more in anxiety than affection, however, he
+realized that we desired his society, and forbore to escape.  Jack is a
+good deal of a gentleman, you see, albeit primitive in his methods of
+showing his discomfort.
+
+"He'll soon stop," said Bee, encouragingly.  "He feels strange at
+first."
+
+But he didn't stop.  The more familiar his surroundings became, the
+more we passed horses and dogs he knew, the keener became his
+humiliation at driving by in enervating luxury, where once he had
+trotted pantingly in the dust and heat.  His howl changed to a deep
+bay, and the bay to a long-drawn wailing, which was so full of pain
+that the passers-by made audible comments.  As for me, I was afraid
+every moment that we would be arrested by a member of the S. P. C. A.,
+but fortunately the populace seemed to think we were on our way to the
+veterinary surgeon for a dangerous operation.
+
+"Poor fellow!" said one, "you can see he is injured by the way they are
+holding him!"
+
+"Ain't them ladies kind-hearted now to take that ugly-lookin' old
+bulldog in that fine carriage to the doctor!" said a factory-girl.
+
+Bee crimsoned.
+
+"Stop laughing!" she said to me in a savage aside.  "I wish I could
+stuff my handkerchief down his throat.  Won't he ever stop?"
+
+"It seems not!" I answered, cheerfully.  "And we really can't consider
+that there is any more style to this manner of driving than if we
+belonged to the _hoi polloi_ who drive with their husbands, and let
+their dogs follow, can we?"
+
+Bee gave me a look.
+
+"I believe you are pinching him to make him howl," she said.
+
+At that unjust accusation I took my arms away from Jack's neck, and
+feeling the affectionate embrace of his lawful mistress relax, he
+violently eluded Bee's, and with a flying leap he was out and away,
+safely restored to his doggish dignity.
+
+By this time quite a little crowd had collected, and Amos's shoulders
+were shaking unmistakably.  Both these things annoyed Bee.  The crowd
+was pitying her.  Amos was laughing at her,--two things which could not
+fail to vex.  She can bear being envied to the verge of being wished a
+violent death with equanimity, but to be pitied or ridiculed?  Haughty
+Bee!  She forgot herself, and gave the order herself to drive fast, and
+the way we drove back to Peach Orchard gave Jack something to do to
+keep up with us.  We may have lacked the style of our driving out, but
+Bee said the pace was good for the sorrels.  To me it savoured of the
+pace of fugitives from justice.
+
+This episode, unfortunate as it had proved, would not have dampened
+Bee's ardour nor discouraged her in the least, had not Jack taken
+matters into his own paws.  He seemed to connect Bee with his day of
+humiliation, and not only eyed her with deep aversion, but howled
+painfully whenever she cornered him.  And as for the victoria--to this
+day, whenever it is taken out, Jack with one leap is under the barn by
+a private entrance which he tunnelled out for himself on that
+never-to-be-forgotten day when we endeavoured to introduce a London
+fashion by means of him.
+
+Nevertheless, her other suggestions were carried out.  The lovely wild
+tangle of berry-bushes and long grass was subdued.  Our old-fashioned
+garden was hidden by a row of firs, while Bee set out beds of cannas
+and geraniums.  To me it was simply hideous, but the look of
+complacency which Bee habitually wore as she thus brought us within the
+pale of civilization more than repaid me for any artistic losses we may
+have sustained.  Bee was my sister and our guest, and could only be
+made happy by feeling that her coming had effected changes for the
+better and by being constantly entertained.  What, then, was more
+simple than to content her with such entertainment as she had requested
+before she came, and by permitting her to smarten us up?  To be sure,
+Aubrey used to tell me every night that he was going to dig up the bed
+of cannas and coleus the moment her back was turned, but as I, too, was
+quite willing to see that done, it seemed to me that I was treading a
+somewhat dangerous road with great discretion and a tact I never should
+get the credit for.  Bee, I felt sure, regarded me as a fool for not
+having done all this at the beginning.
+
+At Bee's request we joined the Country Club and the Copsely Golf Club,
+and I bought more clothes, and the Angel and I found ourselves in a set
+we never had cared for before, but which was amusing enough for a few
+weeks or months at most.
+
+But the episode which broke the backbone of Bee's complacency and
+virtually gave us back our freedom was this:
+
+True to her word, Bee got us an English coachman and a footman, and put
+them into a very smart and highly expensive livery.  But the coachman
+only lasted a week, having too eagerly imbibed of the flowing bowl and
+being discovered by the Angel asleep in his new livery with his head
+sweetly pillowed on the recumbent body of the gentlest cow.  This
+mortified Bee, for the men were, in a sense, her property, so she
+dismissed him, had his livery cleaned, and resolutely set herself to
+the somewhat difficult task of securing a coachman to fit the livery.
+I could, in this, give her no assistance, or, to speak more accurately,
+she would permit none, and finally she announced, with an air of
+triumph which plainly called for congratulations, that she had secured
+what she wanted.
+
+The first time I saw my new coachman, there was something irritatingly
+familiar about him.  He seemed to know me very well, too, and called me
+"Mis' Jardine" with a nod of the head as if we had formerly been pals.
+But under Bee's tutelage I was on terms of distant civility with my
+menials instead of knowing all their joys and sorrows as in the past.
+
+But Bee was charmed with the _tout ensemble_.  She said he matched the
+footman better than the Englishman did, because the Englishman was
+Irish anyway.
+
+So that first afternoon Bee arranged to go to the Copsely Golf Club
+just at the close of the tournament, and to drive up when the porches
+would be filled with the players and their friends having tea.  Bee
+likes to make a dramatic entrance, and often relates in tones of
+positive awe how she once saw a Frenchwoman in an opera-cloak composed
+entirely of white tulle run the whole length of the Grand Opera House
+in Paris in order to make the tulle, which was cut to resemble wings,
+float out diaphanously behind her.
+
+So as we bowled smartly along, the sorrels having been reduced by hard
+driving until they were models of symmetry, the new victoria shining,
+our new liveries glittering in the eyes of the populace, and we
+ourselves ragged out, as Aubrey said, as if our motto had been, "Damn
+the expense," we certainly felt complacent.
+
+"Now watch him pull the sorrels up," whispered Bee.  "I taught him
+myself."
+
+With that we arrived almost at a fire-engine pace in front of the
+club-house steps, and the carriage stopped.  But to our horror, Bee's
+coachman leaned so far backward to pull up that his body was perfectly
+horizontal, and--yes--I was sure of it, he braced his foot against the
+dashboard to get a leverage.  I have seen grocery-boys pull up and turn
+sidewise on their seats in exactly the same manner.
+
+Bee's face was purple.
+
+The sorrels, unaccustomed to such a jerk of their bits, instantly began
+to back, and two men rushed down the steps to our assistance.  But Jehu
+was equal to the occasion.  He slapped the horses' backs with the
+reins, and joyously drove our two off wheels up on to the lowest step
+of the club-house porch.
+
+In that attitude we paused, and _I_ got out.  Bee, after an instant's
+hesitation, gracefully followed suit.  Nor could you tell from her
+placid face that this was not always the way we made our approach.
+
+As for me, I was in a spasm of laughter which Jehu saw.
+
+"I'm sorry, Mis' Jardine," he said, as the gentlemen released the
+sorrels' heads, and he prepared to drive off the steps, "but these
+horses pulls more than Guffin's mare, and I can't get a purchase on 'em
+with this bad hand of mine."
+
+Then I knew who he was!  He drove Guffin's grocery wagon for two
+months, and had lost three fingers of his right hand!
+
+Poor Bee!  But she took it out on me on the way home for not having had
+presentable servants before she came.
+
+Now that she has gone, Amos is driving the sorrels again, and they are
+getting fat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+OUR FIRST HOUSE-PARTY
+
+It was Bee who suggested giving one, but then Bee thought up so many
+things for us to do while she was staying with us!
+
+She invited her friends, Sir Wemyss and Lady Lombard, to spend a week
+at Peach Orchard, and when they accepted she said, to soothe my fright
+at being asked to entertain such grand personages, that if I would
+invite other people and make a house-party, it would take much of the
+responsibility off my shoulders, as then the guests would entertain
+each other.
+
+Then she mentioned Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie, Artie Beguelin and his wife,
+Cary Farquhar, and Captain Featherstone, which would make ten of us in
+all.
+
+To those who did not know Jimmie, this would seem a small number for a
+house-party, but Jimmie in a house all by himself would seem to fill it
+to overflowing with people, but they would all be Jimmie.
+
+As I knew how much solid satisfaction it would be to Mrs. Jimmie to be
+for a whole week in the same house with so famous a beauty as Lady
+Lombard, I acted on Bee's suggestion, and all my people said they would
+come.
+
+Bee came gracefully down-stairs one morning before our guests came.
+She held a letter in her hand.
+
+"Coffee, Bee?" I asked.
+
+"No, thank you.  I had mine in bed."
+
+She wrinkled her brow in perplexity.
+
+"I don't know what to do about it," she murmured.
+
+"About what?"
+
+"Billy.  He wants to see me so much, mother writes.  She thinks I ought
+to come home immediately."
+
+"Let's see," I said.  "It's only eight months since you saw your child.
+Isn't mother rather absurd?"
+
+Bee lifted her eyes.
+
+"Don't be nasty," she said.  "You learned that tone from Aubrey."
+
+Aubrey smiled pleasantly at our guest.
+
+"I didn't!" I said, warmly.  "I used to be quite nasty at times before
+I was married."
+
+Bee showed her little white teeth in a smile.
+
+"I'm glad to hear you admit it," she said, sweetly.
+
+"If you would like to see Billy so much," said Aubrey, politely, "why
+not bring him on here?"
+
+"Could you?" I cried, in delight.  To think of having Billy!  The lamb
+had never been in the country in his life, and he was wild over my
+letters about Peach Orchard.
+
+"I can arrange it, if you like," Aubrey went on--mostly to me, for
+Billy's mother was silently thinking.
+
+"Do have him, Bee!" I cried.  "I won't let him get in your way.  He
+needn't even sleep in your room.  I'll have Norah put up a cot in the
+alcove of the rose room.  She can sleep there, and dress him and
+everything.  You won't be annoyed the least bit."
+
+"Well," said Bee, with graceful reluctance, "if you are sure he won't
+be in your way, and if Aubrey's cousin will bring him, I see no reason
+why he mightn't come."
+
+I almost squealed in my delight.  It would certainly be worth while to
+see the child's eyes when he first saw the calves and little chickens.
+
+I left both Aubrey and Bee at the table while I rushed up-stairs to see
+if the rose room would be just right for him.  I made Aubrey promise to
+arrange everything by telegraph.  Norah loved children, and entered
+into my plans with delight.  Then I flew out to interview old Amos.  He
+had told me only a few days before that the boys on the estate next
+ours wanted to sell their goats and goat carriages.
+
+The days passed rapidly in preparations, but of all my guests, titled
+or otherwise, it was Billy--my Billy--I wanted to see worst.  In two
+days I got a letter.
+
+"Dear Miss Tats," it ran, "I only write to say that I shall be glad to
+come.  If I had not written you a long letter so soon ago, I would
+write more now.  Tell mother to be sure to meet me at the station.
+Don't let her forget that I shall arrive at four-sixteen.  Your
+affectionate little nephew, Billy."
+
+I wept tears of delight over this effusion, and "so soon ago" passed
+into the Jardine vocabulary.
+
+In looking back, I think I can safely say that if Bee had known what
+would happen at that house-party to shock her English friends, she
+would have preferred to discharge her obligations to them by a nice
+little Sunday afternoon at Coney Island or an evening in Chinatown.
+But fortunately the English are a sensible race, and Sir Wemyss and his
+bride, perhaps because of the reasonable way the duchess came around
+when she found her daughter bent upon marrying Sir Wemyss, were so
+good-humoured and so plainly determined to see naught but good in
+America and naught but fun in Americans that they took everything in
+good part.
+
+Aubrey, Jimmie, and Sir Wemyss got on capitally from the start, for
+before they came Aubrey said:
+
+"What shall I say to them at first--when they come aboard of us, and
+before I have got my sea legs on?"
+
+"Why," said Jimmie, "that's dead easy.  Say to Lady Mary, 'Let my wife
+give you some tea,' and to Sir Wemyss say, 'Old man, how would a
+whiskey and soda go?' and there you are right off the bat."
+
+Aubrey said precisely these words, with the most satisfactory result,
+for over her third cup of tea I felt very friendly with the beautiful
+English woman, and after four whiskies the men were almost sociable.
+
+To our delight, Sir Wemyss was enchanted with Peach Orchard.  He
+visited the uttermost corners of it.  He was charmed with the cows,
+admired their breed, almost raved over Jack, the bulldog, whose
+pedigree was nearly as long as that of Lady Mary, who was the daughter
+of a hundred earls.  He gave me many hints about my fine poultry, and
+wrote that first night for a pair of his very finest buff cochins to be
+sent over from his place in England, which he had just inherited from
+his uncle.  He showed us where the apple-trees needed pruning, and was
+so interested in my attempts at an old-fashioned garden, which Bee had
+hidden behind a tall hedge, that he went to fetch Lady Mary to look at
+it, and they both volunteered to send me some plants and shrubs from
+England, which they declared I needed to complete it.
+
+Bee's face was a study during those few hours.  She had honestly tried
+to have everything as English as possible for them, and had trained my
+poor servants almost to death, with instructions as to what they were
+to do during this week.  They were outwardly obedient, but inwardly
+disrespectful, as I overheard Norah, the housemaid, say to the cook:
+
+"Katie, oh, Katie!  We're wor-rkin' for the Four Hundhred now!"
+
+"How do you know we ar-re?" asked Katie.
+
+"The ladies all shtrip fur dinner!"
+
+Jimmie simply shrieked when I told him, but Bee failed to see anything
+in it but an excellent reason why Norah should be discharged.  Poor Bee!
+
+She had given me specific directions about serving the meals, and had
+made me lay in a supply of jam for breakfast, and had implored me to
+serve cold meats and joints and things as the English do, and to please
+her I had promised.  But that first night at dinner Lady Mary turned to
+me and said, with a sweetness and grace not to be reproduced:
+
+"Mrs. Jardine, I have come over here to live among you and to be as
+little unlike you Americans as possible.  I cannot forget that it was
+the American dollar that made it possible for Wemyss to gain poor dear
+mamma's consent to our marriage, and I am correspondingly grateful.
+Now, won't you do me a favour?  Won't you please leave off doing
+anything for us in the English manner, because of your desire to please
+us, and mayn't I see in your house just how Americans live.
+Particularly your breakfasts.  I have heard that they were so
+jolly--not a bit like ours, and I am keen to taste your hot breads!
+Fancy!  I never saw any in my life."
+
+I fairly gasped with delight, and as for the maids, I was afraid they
+were going to kiss Lady Mary.  It removed an awful strain.
+
+"Certainly," I beamed.  "I will do anything I can for you."
+
+"If she does," declared Jimmie, "there won't be a queer American thing
+for you to learn after you leave Peach Orchard.  You'll have seen 'em
+all."
+
+"That is what I should like," said Lady Mary, in her deep, beautiful
+voice.  "And Wemyss would, too."
+
+Sir Wemyss, who spoke but seldom, here removed his cigar, for we had
+gone into the billiard-room after dinner, and said:
+
+"Jardine, you don't know how a little place like this appeals to me.
+Now our places in England are all so large that they take an army of
+servants to run them, and the gardening and all that are done by one's
+men.  But here with only yourselves you can do so much.  You can feed
+your own chickens, you can prune your own trees, you can do such a lot
+yourselves.  I should think it would be great fun."
+
+We were much flattered by this view of it, and Mrs. Jimmie and Bee were
+plainly impressed.
+
+"My sister is very fond of her life here," declared Bee.  "I found
+Peach Orchard a perfect pastoral when I first came."
+
+Jimmie had been smoking thoughtfully, with a frown of perplexity on his
+brow.  Suddenly he spoke.
+
+"I think Sir Wemyss is right," he answered.  "Now, why not all of us
+take a hand at farming, so to speak, while we are here?  I never have,
+but I know I could.  Anyhow I mean to try.  To-morrow, let's go at it
+and prune the trees."
+
+"It is not the proper season to prune trees," observed Sir Wemyss.
+"That should be done in the early spring, before the sap begins to run."
+
+Jimmie looked disappointed.
+
+"Those apple-trees are no good," said the Angel, with tact, "so it
+couldn't possibly hurt to prune them or cut them down if you want to.
+They are a perfect eyesore to me the way they are."
+
+To my surprise, both Jimmie and Sir Wemyss looked pleased.  It was so
+palpably the wrong thing to do that I should have supposed as good a
+husbandman as Sir Wemyss would refuse.  But the joy of doing evidently
+led him to accept the Angel's tactful permission to ruin our
+apple-trees, if by so doing he could interest our guests.
+
+"The very thing!" said Sir Wemyss, with the nearest approach to
+enthusiasm I ever had seen in him.  "Let's prune the trees by all
+means."
+
+"How charming!" said Bee.  "Isn't it delightful to be your own
+gardener!  You have no idea how domestic my sister is, Lady Mary.  She
+superintends her house quite like an Englishwoman.  Did you know that
+we make all our own butter here at Peach Orchard, Sir Wemyss?  And I
+verily believe that Faith knows every chicken on the place by name.
+She is really at her best on a farm."
+
+Jimmie's cigar blinked as if he had winked with it.  Mrs. Jimmie almost
+permitted herself a wry face at the idea of turning her one week with
+the Lombards to such poor account, and at first I feared that this plan
+would quite spoil her pleasure, to say nothing of Bee's.  But if you
+have noticed, the hostess has very little to do with a modern
+house-party, except to get her people together.  After that, they
+manage things to suit themselves.
+
+At any rate, it occurred that way at my house-party.  I had little to
+do except to trot uncomplainingly in the rear of the procession, for
+when once Lady Mary made farming fashionable by her personal interest,
+Bee, who always out-Herods Herod, became so bucolic that she nearly
+drove the hens off their nests in order to hatch the eggs personally.
+
+On the second day from the date of his letter, Billy arrived.  Bee and
+I went to meet him.  The train did not stop at Clovertown, so we had to
+drive about ten miles.  I shall never forget that child's face as he
+saw his mother.  It twitched with feeling, but he felt himself too
+great a boy to cry--especially over joy.  _I_ cried heartily.  I always
+do!  And Billy comforted me in his sweet, babyish fashion that I
+remembered he used when he was in kilts.
+
+Billy became friends with old Amos that first evening, and that
+sufficed, for Amos had enriched my own childhood, and I knew that
+nothing which could amuse or instruct would be omitted.
+
+Billy felt that he and Jimmie, Aubrey, Captain Featherstone, and Sir
+Wemyss constituted the men of the household.  When I asked him why he
+did not include Mr. Beguelin, he put his hands behind him, spread his
+short legs apart, and said:
+
+"Well, you see, Miss Tats, Mr. Beguelin has just been married, and
+bridegrooms don't count."
+
+Things went smoothly enough that first day while my people were
+becoming acquainted.  Then it was Jimmie, dear blessed old, maladroit,
+hot-tempered Jimmie, always so completely at home in a business deal,
+and always so pathetically awkward and so confidently bungling in
+domestic crises, who supplied us with sufficient material for a book on
+"How Not to Prune Trees Properly."
+
+We all went out to the apple-trees early in the morning.  As usual, Sir
+Wemyss was dressed for the part.  Why is it, I wonder, that the British
+always find themselves dressed for the occasion?  I believe, if an
+Englishman were wrecked in mid-ocean, with only a hat-box for baggage,
+that out of that box he could produce bathing-trunks in which to drown
+properly.
+
+The Angel was frankly and simply disreputable, his idea of being
+properly clad for farm-work being to be ragged wherever possible and
+faded all over.  Jimmie, however, wore his ordinary business clothes,
+patent leather shoes, and a derby hat.  And as events transpired, I was
+glad of it.  I love to think of Jimmie pruning trees in patent leathers
+and a derby.
+
+Being, as I say, confident, Jimmie, who never had seen a tree pruned,
+waited for no instructions, but sprang nimbly upon a barrel, and,
+standing on his tiptoes, reached up and snipped at the lower branches.
+Sir Wemyss took a ladder and his pruning-knife, and disappeared from
+view into the thickest part of the tree.  But hearing the industry of
+Jimmie's scissors, he parted the branches and called out:
+
+"I say there, old man!  You are cutting off twigs.  These are the
+things which need to go--these suckers.  See?"
+
+"Yes, Jimmie," I said, pleasantly.  "You are not trimming a hedge, you
+know.  You are--"
+
+Alas, that accidents are always my fault!  Jimmie turned to glare at
+me, and the treacherous barrel-head gave way, letting him down most
+ungently into its middle, and rasping his shins in the descent in a
+manner which must have been particularly trying to one of delicate
+sensibilities.
+
+I sank down suddenly in gasps of unregenerate laughter, for the
+barrel-head was a tight fit, and as Jimmie endeavoured to climb out,
+the barrel climbed too, giving him a strange hoop-skirt effect, which
+went but sadly with the derby hat.
+
+Jimmie grinned sheepishly as the Angel extricated him, and placed a
+strong board on the barrel for him to stand upon in safety.
+
+Then Jimmie decided to saw a dead limb off, and leave the pruning to
+Sir Wemyss.  So he took the saw and went valiantly to work, but it was
+tiresome, so he leaned his weight against the limb and industriously
+sawed his prop off, which sent him flying almost into Lady Mary's lap.
+He saved himself by his nimbleness, but this time Jimmie was
+mad--uncompromisingly mad.
+
+He said little, however, but seated himself in the cooling and tranquil
+vicinity of his Madonna-faced wife, while watching the Angel and Sir
+Wemyss reduce the refractory tree to symmetry and healthfulness without
+effort and without disaster.
+
+His failure and particularly Bee's and my ghoulish laughter had nettled
+him, however, and he was determined to recover himself as well as
+regain his place in our esteem.
+
+All day he wandered around, seeking a suitable opportunity, all the
+while watching me craftily to see if I suspected his design.  But I
+gave no sign, which plainly lightened the burden he was carrying.
+
+Lady Mary trained my crimson rambler rose over the dining-room window
+and cut flowers for all the vases.  This was ordinarily my work, and I
+loved it, but it gave her pleasure, and above all it gave her a home
+pleasure which she had missed.  I asked her if she would train the
+roses every day while she was with us, taking the work off my hands.
+She coloured softly as she gladly consented, and went prettily and
+importantly to work.
+
+Artie Beg, having just come home from a prolonged honeymoon, was
+frequently obliged to go into town for a few hours' conference with his
+partner, and Cary, from being one of the most energetic of guests, had
+developed a tendency to talk of nothing in the world except her
+husband, and, when no one would listen to her, of sitting apart with
+her hands folded in her lap and a dreamy look in her eyes as if only
+her body were present at my house-party.  Her mind was plainly in Wall
+Street.
+
+I may not be believed, but Christianity and the love of God were
+working in my heart when the next afternoon I asked Jimmie's help in a
+piece of work which it did not seem possible for him to fail in.
+
+The side porch has a great curving, bulging iron trellis for the
+honeysuckle, and I keep the vines so thinned out that I can have boxes
+of flowers growing on the porch railing, which only need what sunlight
+comes filtering through the honeysuckle.  By cutting the blossoms every
+day I obtain the result I wish, and on this occasion I had cut all I
+could reach, and I asked Jimmie to cut those which were beyond me.
+
+These boxes at the bottom were only as wide as the porch railing, but
+flared out on both sides in order to hold more earth, and all were
+painted green.  Now in that particular box, shaded by the honeysuckle,
+I had, with infinite care, coaxed sun-loving dwarf nasturtiums to grow,
+because their gorgeous colouring looked so well next to the box which
+held my ferns.
+
+I had planted the nasturtiums in early spring in the box in the
+greenhouse, shading the colours from pale yellow at each end to a
+glorious orange and crimson in the middle.  Each plant was perfect of
+its kind and growing and blooming riotously before I took the box,
+which was some fourteen feet long, and with my own hands nailed it to
+the porch railing, and its ends to two pillars.
+
+It never occurred to me that Jimmie would be foolish enough to try to
+_stand_ on the edge of that box, for of course, while I am no
+carpenter, I drove my nails to cope with wind-storms, not a great man,
+who--oh, well!  I might have known that Jimmie would do something.
+
+He could have reached all I wanted from the porch, but of course,
+though I only stepped through the French window to lay my flowers down,
+in that instant Jimmie had sprung upon that slanting edge of my poor,
+frail little box, and in that instant the mischief was done.  The box
+tilted and flung Jimmie forward against the curving trellis, which
+began to creak and groan alarmingly.  All my precious nasturtiums were
+pitched headlong into the flower-beds below, and for once Jimmie
+shrieked my name in accents of the acutest entreaty.
+
+"Faith!" he shouted, below his breath.  "Faith, for God's sake run here
+and catch me!  This damned thing is giving way.  Haul me back.  Oh, my
+coat won't save me!  Leggo my coat-tails.  Put your arms around my
+waist.  Stop laughing!  Put--your--arms--around my waist--I say--and
+haul me back!  Brace your feet and pull!"
+
+I did as he desired, bracing my feet and dragging him back to safety by
+his leather belt.
+
+We were detected, however, by Bee and Captain Featherstone, who came
+strolling gracefully around the corner of the house just as Jimmie's
+convulsed clutch loosened from the trellis and set all the vines to
+dancing and trembling, as if a wind-storm had passed over them.
+
+There was no need of their asking what had happened.  The ruin spoke
+for itself.  Captain Featherstone gallantly helped me to pick up and
+replant my poor nasturtiums, but they had been so bruised and their
+feelings so wounded by their undignified tumble that they did nothing
+but sulk all the remainder of the summer, never once blooming out
+handsomely as they should, although I carefully explained to them just
+how it happened.  They seemed to think that it was my fault, and they
+never forgave me.  Sometimes flowers are as unreasonable as people.
+
+Three days after Billy's arrival, when he had thoroughly mastered all
+the details of Peach Orchard and knew personally all the cows, the
+horses, the white bulldog, the cats, the chickens, the little calves,
+and the reachable branches of every tree on the place, old Amos came in
+to speak to me.
+
+He stood before me, bowing, with his hat in his hand:
+
+"Well'm, Miss Faith honey, I reckon de time's about ripe foh de goats.
+Dat boy's investigated every nook an' cornder ob de place, an' ef you
+tink bes' I'll go after de goats dis afternoon."
+
+"Very well, Amos," I said.  "We are all going to Philadelphia to-day to
+attend the launching of Mr. Beguelin's yacht, and we are going to take
+Billy.  You can bring the goats up while we are away, and tomorrow
+morning we can give them to him."
+
+"Yas'm," said Amos, bowing.  "I'll have 'em hyah when y'all gets back."
+
+I will say nothing of the ceremony of the launching of the yacht,
+although, from Cary's uplifted face, you would have thought it was the
+christening of a first-born child.  Jimmie says we needn't say
+anything.  We were worse!
+
+Billy was wildly excited over the breaking of the bottle of champagne,
+and asked a thousand questions about it.
+
+The next morning we all went out to the barn to see him receive his
+goats.  His face fairly beamed when he saw them.  He clapped his hands.
+
+"Oh, Uncle Aubrey!  Miss Tats!  Are they for me?"
+
+Then he flung his arms around his mother's neck--Bee's neck, mind
+you!--and cried out:
+
+"Oh, mother, I do think I have the kindest relatives in all the world!
+What other little boys' relatives would think of the kindness of giving
+them goats?"
+
+"That's right, my boy," said Captain Featherstone, looking with open
+admiration at Bee's motherly attitude, on her knees beside her boy and
+his arms around her neck, "always be grateful.  It's a rare virtue
+these days."
+
+Jimmie, however, who always spoils things, winked at Aubrey.  But
+Billy's next remark threw us all into fits of laughter.
+
+"Oh, Uncle Aubrey, can't we have a ceremony of launching the goats, and
+mayn't I break a bottle of champagne over their horns?"
+
+Jimmie fairly yelled.  Billy looked distressed.
+
+"Their horns are very strong!" he urged.  "I don't believe it would
+hurt them one bit.  And you might give me one of those little bottles I
+saw Mr. Jimmie open--you remember the little one you had after the two
+big ones, don't you, Mr. Jimmie?"
+
+"Oh, yes, Billy," I said.  "Mr. Jimmie remembers.  (You'd be ashamed
+not to, wouldn't you, Jimmie?)"
+
+"You think you're funny," growled Jimmie, witheringly, as Sir Wemyss
+and Captain Featherstone broke out afresh, and even Artie Beg left off
+looking at Cary long enough to smile at Jimmie's scarlet face and Mrs.
+Jimmie's anxious one.  She moved quietly over to where Jimmie was
+standing with his hands in his pockets, and slipped her arm through
+his.  She did not know quite what it was all about, but she felt that
+they were laughing at her Jimmie, and, as usual, she looked
+reproachfully at me.
+
+Billy's plaintive voice recalled us.
+
+"Yes, dearie," I hastened to say.  "You may have a small bottle of
+champagne--or perhaps Apollinaris water would be better, it sparkles
+just the same, and if it flew in the goats' eyes it wouldn't make them
+smart, and the champagne would."
+
+Billy beamingly acquiesced.
+
+"Now I must just think up some good names for them," he said, with an
+air of importance, "and perhaps I'll have to ask Uncle Aubrey and Mr.
+Jimmie to help me.  It's awful hard to think up suitable names for
+goats."
+
+"All right, old man," said Aubrey.  "Come along.  We'll think 'em up
+now, and have the launching this afternoon, and invite some people to
+the ceremony."
+
+So he and Billy and Jimmie took leave of us, and strolled away
+together, Billy with his hands in his trousers' pockets and striving to
+take just as long steps as they did.  He would have given his kingdom
+for a pipe!
+
+We got up quite a little party, and worked very hard over it.  Bee and
+Captain Featherstone delivered the invitations, and people thought it
+was a most delicious joke, and came in a mood of the utmost hilarity.
+At first Billy wanted to break the bottle himself, but upon being told
+that girls always did it, he invited a bewitching little maid of seven,
+Kathleen Van Osdel, to christen them, while Billy valiantly sat in the
+goat-carriage, waiting for Aubrey and Amos to let go of the goats'
+horns.
+
+The names were kept a profound secret, but Jimmie had a fashion of
+going purple in the face, and pretending he was only going to sneeze.
+He walked around among the guests trying to appear unconcerned--which
+made me watch him closely.
+
+He had appointed himself master of ceremonies.  He it was who put the
+Apollinaris bottle into Kathleen's hands, and held her in his arms
+while she leaned down and broke the bottle over the horns of the
+gentler goat.
+
+Then her childish treble shrilled out:
+
+"I christen thee, Roosevelt and Congress!" she cried out.
+
+"Let go!" shouted Billy, standing up in the goat carriage, his cheeks
+like scarlet flowers.
+
+Amos and Aubrey released their hold, Kathleen screamed with excitement,
+and away bounded the goats down the driveway, with Sir Wemyss after
+them on horseback, for fear anything might happen.
+
+But nothing did happen, and in ten minutes back they came to receive
+congratulations from everybody.
+
+"Are they all right, Billy?" I cried.
+
+"Yes, Miss Tats.  Congress is just as gentle as can be when you let him
+alone.  They go splendidly, except when Roosevelt butts.  You know he
+is always butting into Congress and making trouble."
+
+At that I understood, for Jimmie deliberately rolled on the grass.
+
+"I noticed that peculiarity of the goats," he gasped, when he could
+speak, "but if I had trained that child a month, he couldn't have put
+it better.  It's--it's simply too good to be true!"
+
+Then he went away to explain the joke to Lady Mary.
+
+I think Bee enjoyed the house-party in spite of its gardening flavour,
+for we entertained quite a little.  At another time I gave a musicale,
+and had people out from town; we were invited about while automobiles
+snorted and chunked into Peach Orchard at all hours of the day to the
+everlasting terror of the cats, who streaked by us and flashed up trees
+in simple lines of long gray fur.
+
+It was strange how the cat family resembled human beings, for it was
+the young cats, Puffy and Pinkie and Fitz and Corbett, who got used to
+the automobiles first, and ceased to run at their approach.  Youth is
+ever progressive and adaptable, while poor old Mitnick crouched in the
+fork of a high pine, and glared with her yellow eyes and waved her
+great tail in furious revolt at those puffing, snorting monsters which
+she never could abide anyway,--and she was glad she couldn't.
+
+We had no automobile, but the sorrels were there in the height of their
+glory and slimness, and we still basked in the refulgence of the
+coachman and footman of Bee's own selection, so her soul was at peace.
+
+Only one thing happened to mar our pleasure.  Jimmie fell ill.
+
+Mrs. Jimmie hunted me up one blistering morning, and said, anxiously:
+
+"Faith, I am very much worried about Jimmie.  He is lying down."
+
+"Well, what of it?" I said, with unintentioned brutality.  "Does he
+always sit up that you seem so surprised?"
+
+She looked at me reproachfully.
+
+"He always sits up when he is well," she said, gently.
+
+"Is he ill?" I exclaimed, dropping my gardening shears and hastily
+wiping my hands on my apron.  "Can I do anything for him?  Does he need
+a doctor?  I'll go right up."
+
+Mrs. Jimmie coloured all over her soft creamy face.  She laid her hand
+on my arm.
+
+"Don't be offended, will you, dear?" she begged, "but--Jimmie--you know
+how unreasonable sick men are--"
+
+She paused helplessly.
+
+I waited.
+
+"Well, out with it!  What does he want?"
+
+"He said--I didn't realize how difficult it would be to tell you when
+he said it--but he said--"
+
+Again she stopped.
+
+"I shall evidently have to go and ask him what he wants," I said,
+moving toward the house.
+
+"No, no, dear!  I will tell you!  Don't go near him!" pleaded Mrs.
+Jimmie.  "That is just what he doesn't want.  He said on no account
+were you to come near him."
+
+She paused with a gasp.  Evidently she expected me to burst into tears.
+
+"The brute!" I remarked, pleasantly.  "I hope he is suffering!"
+
+Mrs. Jimmie's beautiful face became instantly grave.
+
+"He is suffering, Faith," she said, quietly.
+
+"Then why won't he see me?  Perhaps I could do something.  Aubrey
+always lets me try.  Has he a headache?"
+
+"He has a splitting headache, he says, and a high fever, and his collar
+hurts him."
+
+"His collar hurts him!  Then why doesn't he take it off?"
+
+"That's just it.  He won't.  He says he always wears it and it never
+hurt him before, and he'll be--well, he says he won't take it off for
+anybody."
+
+I turned away and bit my lip.
+
+Poor old sick, obstinate Jimmie!  In my mind's eye I could just see him
+lying there with all his hot clothes on and swearing he would not take
+them off and be made comfortable.
+
+But I could do nothing.  He would see none of us.  I sent tea and
+lemonade and ice and hot-water bags and every conceivable remedy to his
+rooms, but with no effect.  Nor would he hear of our calling a doctor.
+
+About four o'clock Mrs. Jimmie left him for a few moments, and this was
+my chance.
+
+I slipped into the room.  He was lying on the couch with his feet in
+patent leather shoes,--even his coat and waistcoat on, and a high,
+tight collar which rasped his ears.
+
+He grinned sheepishly when he saw me.
+
+"You told me to keep out, I know, but I never do as I'm told, so I came
+anyhow."
+
+"I know that," growled Jimmie.
+
+"Your head's as hot as fire," I said.  "And those shoes are drawing
+like a mustard plaster."
+
+"I don't care.  I won't take 'em off," said Jimmie, savagely, raising
+himself on his elbow.
+
+I turned on him.
+
+"You always were a fool, Jimmie," I said.  "You don't have to take them
+off if you don't want to."  (He sank back with a groan of pain.)  "But
+I'm going to do it, and if you kick while your foot is in my lap you'll
+hurt me."
+
+Before he could wink I had pulled off those abominable things, and
+slipped his narrow silk-stockinged feet into cool slippers.  He
+couldn't restrain a sigh of comfort.  I went in the closet to put his
+shoes on their trees, and brought out a white linen coat.
+
+"Sit up and put this on," I commanded.
+
+"I will not!" he answered, flatly.
+
+I looked around and there stood Mrs. Jimmie.  If she had stayed away
+another ten minutes, I would have got him comfortable.  But in spite of
+our combined efforts he insisted upon lying there as he was.
+
+I went out and telephoned for the doctor, and when he came it pleased
+Jimmie no end that he didn't say a word about taking off those hot
+clothes.
+
+"You see," he said to his wife, "that doctor knows his business.  He
+doesn't devil me the way you women do."
+
+Mrs. Jimmie was wise enough to make no reply.
+
+"He said if you would go to sleep for an hour you would feel better,"
+she said.  "So put on this thin coat, then I'll close the blinds and go
+out."
+
+Jimmie looked at her quizzically.  Then he slowly sat up and changed
+his coat without a word.
+
+When he wakened his headache was gone.  But he was unable to come down
+to dinner, and we saw him no more that day.
+
+As he went to bed that night he said:
+
+"I suppose you and Faith chuckled over getting your own way with my
+shoes and coat.  But I want you to tell Faith that I stuck it out on
+the collar and that I only took it off when I went to bed!"
+
+He was all right the next day, so we were spared the grief of being
+obliged to bury him in that collar.
+
+So it came to be the last day of the Lombards' stay.
+
+We had all grown exceedingly fond of the dear English people who had
+come so sweetly into the midst of an American home and adapted
+themselves to our way of living with such easy grace.  No one would
+have believed, to see Lady Mary in her simple garden hat and cotton
+gown, that she was a court beauty, over whose hand royalty had often
+bent in gracious admiration.  But it was true.
+
+Nor was she deficient in a sense of humour, for she openly doted on
+Jimmie, and listened intently for his jokes, with the laudable
+intention of seeing them before they were explained to her, if she
+could.
+
+His absurd misadventures, however, came well within her ken, and this
+last one so tickled her fancy that--I blush to say it, but it is
+true--our imported Guernsey cow is responsible for Jimmie's invitation
+to Combe Abbey to visit the Duchess of Strowther, when Lady Mary goes
+home to her mother next May.
+
+This is how it happened.
+
+We were all out on the tennis-court one afternoon, when our attention
+was attracted by the strange antics of the Guernsey.  She was generally
+quite shy and would allow no one to whom she was not accustomed to come
+near her.  But on this occasion she lurched up near where we were
+standing, and crossed her forefeet and leered at us in such a way that
+we women instinctively moved backward and put the men between us and
+her.
+
+We all stared at her, and she stared back and switched her long tail
+and hung her tongue out and rolled from side to side, until Jimmie said:
+
+"I'm blessed if the old girl doesn't look drunk!"
+
+Just then old Amos ambled up, his fat sides shaking.
+
+"Dat's jest what!" he exclaimed.  "You sho'ly am a jedge ob jags,
+Mistah Jimmie, tah be able tah tell 'em in man er beas'!  Dat cow's
+drunk.  Dat's what she is.  Jest plain drunk an' disorderly.  She broke
+her rope dis mornin' en got at de apples en filled hersif full ob dem.
+And apples always mek a cow drunk!"
+
+"I never heard of such a thing," said Captain Featherstone.
+
+Amos scratched his head.
+
+"Well, Mars Captain, I reckon dere's a heap o' tings about a farm dat
+army ossifers never hearn tell of--meaning no onrespect to dere book
+larnin'.  But jes' de same, dat air Guernsey am drunk."
+
+We all looked at her with interest.
+
+"But what will she do?" I said.  "How does being drunk affect a cow?"
+
+"Jes' same as er man, Miss Faith, honey.  Jes' look at her!  She used
+to be de shyest, mos' ladylake cow awn de place.  She always seemed to
+'member dat she'd had a calf en was a lady ob quality.  Now look at
+her!  She don' keer!  She'd jes' as soon lean her head on de Boss's
+shoulder en ax him fer a drink er de loan ob his cee-gyar.  She's done
+forgot dat she's a mudder.  She feels lake she don' know which is de
+odder side ob de street en she don' want to be tol'!  Dat's what drink
+does for man or beas'."
+
+"But will it hurt her milk?" I said, soberly, for the rest were
+screaming at the imbecile expression of the Guernsey while Amos thus
+diagnosed her case.
+
+"No'm, no'm.  Leastways hit won't hurt huh none.  It'll dry her up,
+dough.  Such a jag as dat Guernsey's got will dry up her milk for two
+weeks er mo'.  En I wouldn't keer to be de one ter milk huh, neider!"
+
+Here was Jimmie's opportunity.
+
+"Nonsense!" he said.  "I'll milk her!  I'm not afraid of what a drunken
+cow will do.  Let me know, Amos, when you want her milked."
+
+"All right, Mistah Jimmie.  I sho will let you know, yas, sir.  Now
+den, Missus fool cow!  Ef you can leab off chattin' wid de quality long
+enough to go teh yo' stall, I'll show you de way."
+
+I repeat--the Guernsey used to be our best-behaved, most intelligent
+and ladylike cow, but when Amos endeavoured to lead her away, she
+calmly sank down just where she was, and went to sleep.
+
+This was too much for Amos.  Fun was fun, to be sure, and he seemed
+glad we were pleased by the Guernsey's antics, but his wrath at a cow's
+taking the tennis-court for her afternoon nap upset his ideas of
+propriety.
+
+"Doesn't she remind you for all the world," cried Jimmie, with tears in
+his eyes, "of a man who sinks to sleep with his arm affectionately
+around a lamp-post?  Her feet are in an attitude that a painter would
+call 'one of unstudied grace!'"
+
+But Amos, in a fury, pushed, pulled, slapped, and shoved her into a
+sitting posture, and, by dint of leaning upon each other as if both
+were under the weather, he finally got her started toward the barn,
+she, every once in awhile, pausing to lift a fore foot hilariously
+before planting it on her next uncertain step.
+
+Several hours later I saw Jimmie, with a shining new milk-pail on his
+arm, followed by Amos with the milking-stool in his hand and his tongue
+in his cheek, go toward the Guernsey's stall.
+
+We all looked expectantly at each other, then rose, as if by common
+consent, and followed.
+
+Lady Mary tucked her arm under Mrs. Jimmie's, and gurgled deliciously.
+
+"Oh, dear Mrs. Jimmie!  Is your husband always as amusing as he has
+been here at Peach Orchard?  If he is, I am sure mamma would just
+delight in him--only things aren't always happening at Combe Abbey to
+show him off as they are at Mrs. Jardine's."
+
+Mrs. Jimmie looked dubious at the first part of this remark, flushed
+with pleasure at the middle of it, and looked reproachfully at me at
+the last.
+
+Why is everything always my fault, I wonder?
+
+"Well, I don't know," she said, slowly, "but it does seem as if Jimmie
+always gets into more troub--I mean, has more adventures when he and
+Faith are together than when he and I are alone.  Oh, oh!  What can be
+the matter with that cow!  Oh, I wonder if she has killed my husband!"
+
+We all looked just in time to see the Guernsey gallop madly across the
+garden, plough her way through the sweet corn, and disappear gaily over
+the fence, heading for the trolley-tracks, with Amos a close second as
+she took the hurdle.
+
+Bee's English coachman, who took great pride in the kitchen-garden,
+hastily followed to see what damage she had done, but at Mrs. Jimmie's
+agonized entreaty to know what had become of Jimmie, I called him, and
+he came, respectfully touching his forelock in a way which Jimmie
+always said "was worth the price of admission."
+
+"I think she has about done for the Country Gentleman, ma'am.  She has
+trampled it so it will never be any good."
+
+Mrs. Jimmie turned white, and leaned gaspingly on Lady Mary.
+
+"Trampled him!" she cried.  "Oh, come!  Come quickly, and see if she
+has killed him!"
+
+"My dear!" I cried, almost hysterical over her mistake.  "The Country
+Gentleman is a kind of sweet corn--not Jimmie!  See, there he is now.
+Look, dearest!"
+
+Sure enough, there came Jimmie, a trifle sheepish, but defiant.  His
+derby hat was without a brim, the milk-pail was jammed together like a
+folding lunch-box, and had a little foam on the outside, as the sole
+product of his milking prowess.
+
+We asked no questions, but our eager faces demanded an explanation.
+
+He gave it,--terse as was his wont.
+
+"Well, I'll bet that damned cow never switches her tail in anybody's
+face again!"
+
+We needed no further description of what had happened.  The picture was
+complete.
+
+Strange to say, Lady Mary seemed to comprehend better than any of us.
+She gurgled with laughter the whole evening, and lavished attentions
+upon Jimmie so flatteringly that he ceased to look furtively at me and
+became quite cocky before the evening was over, pretending that he had
+done all these things to help me entertain my guests.
+
+As we went up-stairs that night, Mrs. Jimmie clutched my arm, and, with
+eyes as big as stars, said, in a tense whisper:
+
+"My dear, we are invited to Combe Abbey!  Think of it!  To visit the
+Duchess of Strowther!  Lady Mary is going to write to her mother
+immediately!"
+
+If it had been anybody except dear Mrs. Jimmie, I should have said:
+
+"Is she going to invite the cow, too?"
+
+But as it was, I squeezed back, and said, earnestly:
+
+"I am so glad, dear Mrs. Jimmie!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+ON THE GENTLE ART OF WASTING OTHER PEOPLE'S TIME
+
+On the last day of the house-party we decided to hold a family
+gathering in the evening, to which each guest must bring a written
+sketch of some member of the household.  It was to be a very short
+sketch, not to consume over ten minutes in the reading, and no one was
+to get angry, and no one was to get his feelings hurt.
+
+Aubrey had to go into New York to attend a dress rehearsal of his new
+play, but he promised to write something on the train, and have it
+ready.  His absence left me at once to play hostess and to receive the
+queer, curious, and inconsequent persons who flock to the door of the
+successful playwright, with every wish from obtaining his autograph to
+an offer to stage his plays.
+
+My time was all taken up until eleven o'clock, in ordering and setting
+the servants at work, righting their wrongs, and pottering around among
+my large family.  At three I had an engagement.  This left me but a
+short time in which to write my sketch.  I begged Bee to help me out,
+but never yet have I succeeded in impressing Bee with any respect for
+my working hours.  For this reason I laid down the law with open energy
+to Billy, hoping that Bee would see that I meant her.
+
+I began the campaign at breakfast.  Bee and Billy and I were alone.
+
+"At eleven o'clock I am going to begin to write," I announced, firmly,
+"and, Billy, I want you distinctly to understand that you are not to
+run your engine in my hall.  Do you hear?"
+
+"Um--huh," said Billy, smiling at me like a cherub.
+
+Bee leaned over and wiped the butter off Billy's chin.
+
+"Before I go to town to-day I want to talk over that blue silk with
+you," she said.  "I don't know how much to get, and Eugenie is so
+extravagant unless I get the stuff and tell her I got all there was in
+the piece.  Then she makes it do.  Would you have it made up with lace?"
+
+"Now, look here, Bee," I said, "I am not going to get my head all
+muddled with dressmaking before I begin to write.  I have all my ideas
+ready to write that article for to-night.  I am going to tell about Mr.
+and Mrs. Jimmie at Canterbury.  Don't you remember what happened?  You
+know if you side-track me on clothes I simply cannot do a thing."
+
+"I know," said Bee, placidly.  "No, Billy, not another lump of sugar.
+Be quiet while mamma talks to Tattah.  I know, but it seems to me you
+might have selected another day to write.  You know I wanted to consult
+you about the dinner Thursday."
+
+"I didn't select the day.  The day selected me."
+
+"Why didn't you write yesterday?"
+
+"I didn't have any time."
+
+"Why don't you wait until afternoon?"
+
+"You know they are to be read tonight."
+
+"Oh, very well, go ahead, and I won't bother you.  I dare say the
+dinner will be all right.  But if you would just tell me which to use,
+lace or chiffon with the blue?"
+
+"Lace," I said, in desperation.
+
+Bee half-way closed her eyes and took Billy's hand out of the
+cream-pitcher.
+
+"I think I'll use chiffon," she said.
+
+The only use my advice is to Bee is to fasten her on to the opposite
+thing.  She says I help her to decide because I am always wrong.
+
+"Now will you keep Billy away and excuse me to all visitors, and don't
+come near my door for three hours and send my luncheon up at one
+o'clock, and _don't send after the tray_!  Leave it there until I have
+finished writing."
+
+"It is so untidy," murmured Bee.
+
+"Well, who will see it?"
+
+I am one of those who cleanse the outside of the desk and the bureau.
+
+"Now, Billy, my precious, if you will keep away from Tattah all the
+morning, I will give you some candy directly after dinner.  You will
+find it on the sconce just where I always put it," I said.
+
+The sconce is where Billy and I put things for each other.  He is only
+three and a half--"thrippence, ha'penny," he says if you ask him, but
+beguiling--oh, as beguiling as Cleopatra, or the serpent in the Garden
+of Eden, or--or as his mother!
+
+Billy and I went to look at the sconce on my way up-stairs, and he
+called me back twice, saying, "Tattah, I want to kiss you," which I
+could but feel was something due to the promised candy on the sconce.
+
+I sat down and began to write:
+
+
+_Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie at Canterbury_.
+
+Mrs. Jimmie, having been presented at the Court of St. James, always
+has more to do in London than she can attend to.  As Jimmie hates
+functions with all the hatred of the American business man who looks
+upon gloves as for warmth only, this leaves Jimmie and me to roam
+around London at will.  Mrs. Jimmie loathes the top of a "'bus" and
+absolutely draws the line at "The Cheshire Cheese."  She lunches at
+Scott's and dines at the Savoy, while Jimmie and I are never so happy
+as in the grill-room at the Trocadero or in a hansom, threading the
+mazes of the City, bound for a plate of beefsteak pie at "The Cheshire
+Cheese" or on top of a 'bus on Saturday night, going through the
+Whitechapel region, creepy with horrors of "Jack the Ripper."
+
+"What in all the world is a beefsteak pie?" she asked us, when she
+heard our unctuous exclamations.
+
+"Why, it is a huge meat pie, made out of ham and larks and pigeons and
+beef, with a delicious gravy or sauce and a divine pastry.  And you eat
+it in a little old kitchen with a sanded floor and deal tables, and
+where the bread is cut in chunks and where the steins are so thick that
+it is like drinking your beer over a stone wall, and where Dr. Samuel
+Johnson used to sit so often that the oil from his hair has made a
+lovely dirty spot on the wall, and they have it under glass with a
+tablet to his memory, so that if you like you can go and kneel down and
+worship before it, with your knees grinding into the sand of the
+floor," I said.
+
+"Dear me," said Mrs. Jimmie, faintly.  "Couldn't they have cleaned it
+off?"
+
+
+At this juncture Bee came in with her hat on.  "Excuse me for
+interrupting you," she said, with a far-away look in her eyes.  "But do
+you mind if I copy that pink negligee?  It hangs so much better than
+those I got in Paris.  I won't take a moment.  Just stand up and let me
+see.  You needn't look so despairing, I am not going to stay.  No,
+Billy, you stay there.  Mother will be down directly.  Oh, baby, why
+will you step on poor Tattah's gown?  See, you hurt her.  Didn't I tell
+you to stay with Norah?  Six, eight, ten--don't, Billy.  Don't touch
+any of Tattah's papers.  Twelve--and four times seven--I think thirty
+yards of lace--Billy, take your engine off the piano.  Oh, I forgot to
+tell you that Dick just telephoned, and wants us to make up a party for
+the theatre, with a supper afterward, next Monday.  I telephoned to
+Freddie and asked him, and he is delighted, and so I told Dick that we
+would all come with pleasure.  Now come, Billy, we must not interrupt
+Tattah.  This is one of the days when she must not be disturbed."
+
+She closed the door with the softness one uses in closing the door of a
+death-chamber, in order, I suppose, "not to disturb" me.  I pulled
+myself together, and went on.
+
+
+_Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie at Canterbury_.
+
+"Clean it off?  What sacrilege!  Why, there are persons who would like
+to buy the whole wall, as Taffy tried to buy the wall on which Little
+Billee had drawn Trilby's foot," I exclaimed.
+
+Mrs. Jimmie looked incredulous.  She is so deliciously lacking in a
+sense of humour that in the frivolous society of Jimmie and me she is
+as much out of place as the Venus de Milo would be in vaudeville.
+
+"We had such a delightful day at Stoke Pogis Monday, how would you like
+to spend Sunday at Canterbury?" she said.  "It seems to me that it
+would be a most restful thing to wander through that lovely old
+cathedral on Sunday."
+
+Before I could reply, Jimmie dug his hands down in his pockets, thrust
+his legs out in front of him, dropped his chin on his shirt-bosom and
+chuckled.
+
+"What I like are cheerful excursions," he said.  "On Monday we went to
+Stoke Pogis.  It rained, and we had to wear overshoes, and we carried
+umbrellas.  We lunched at a nasty little inn where we had to eat cold
+ham and cold mutton and cold beef, when we were wet and frozen to start
+with.  What I wanted was a hot Scotch and a hot chop and hot
+potatoes--everything _hot_.  Then--"
+
+"Wait," I cried.  "It was the inn where John Storm and Glory Quayle
+lunched that day when she led him such a dance."
+
+"John Fiddlesticks!" said Jimmie.  "As if that counted against that
+cold lunch!  Then we arranged to go in the wagonette, but you got into
+such a hot argument with me--"
+
+"I thought you said we didn't have anything hot," I murmured.
+
+"Then we missed the wagonette, and spent an hour finding a cab.  Then
+when we got there we were waylaid by an old woman in a little cottage,
+who showed us a register of tourists, and who artfully mentioned the
+sums they had given toward the restoration of Stoke Pogis, and you made
+me give more than the day's excursion cost.  Then we went along a wet,
+bushy lane that muddied my trousers, and when we arrived at Gray's
+grave, you found the solemn yew-tree, and perched yourself on a wet,
+cold gravestone, and read Gray's Elegy aloud, while I held an umbrella
+over your heads and enjoyed myself.  Now you want to put in Sunday at
+Canterbury, where, if it isn't more cheerful, you will probably have to
+bury me."
+
+"Jimmie, you haven't any soul!" I said, in disgust.
+
+Jimmie grunted.
+
+
+A knock on the door.
+
+"Please excuse me for interrupting you," said Mary, "but there are two
+reporters down-stairs, who want to know if they may photograph the
+front of the house for the Sunday _Battle Ax_."
+
+"Yes, I don't care.  Tell them to go ahead."
+
+She shut the door and went away.
+
+
+_Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie at Canterbury_.
+
+"Oh, Jimmie," sighed his wife.
+
+
+Another knock.
+
+"Mary, what _do_ you want?" I said, savagely.
+
+She stuttered.
+
+"And please, Missis, they want to know if you will just come and sit on
+the doorstep a moment with a book in your hand.  I told them Mr.
+Jardine wasn't at home, so they said you would do!"
+
+"No, I won't.  Tell my sister to put on my hat and hold the book in
+front of her face and be photographed for me."
+
+"Very well, Missis."
+
+She went out, and again I numbered the page and essayed to write.  But
+I could not.  I was rapidly becoming mired.  I stonily refused to leave
+my desk, but sat staring at the wall, trying to get the thread of my
+narrative, when--Mary again.
+
+She was in tears.
+
+"I am afraid to speak to you, and I am afraid _not_ to speak to you,"
+she stammered.
+
+"Well, what is it?"
+
+"Indeed, I try, Missis, but I can't seem to help you any.  There are
+two young girls in the drawing-room, who want to know if Mr. Jardine
+will give his autograph to the Highland Alumnae Club.  It has 472
+members.  They sent up their cards."
+
+I simply moaned.
+
+"That will be a whole hour's work!  I can't do it now.  (Mary knows I
+always write Aubrey's autographs for him!)  Tell them to leave the
+cards and call for them to-morrow."
+
+
+_Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie at Canterbury_.
+
+"How in the world, Mrs. Jimmie, did you come to throw yourself away on
+Jimmie?" I said, with an impertinence which was only appreciated by
+Jimmie.
+
+Mrs. Jimmie took me with infinite seriousness, and looked horrified at
+the sacrilege.  She got up and crossed the room and sat down beside
+Jimmie on the sofa, without saying a word.  Her tall, full figure
+towered above the gentlemanly slouch of Jimmie's boyish proportions,
+and her thus silently arraying herself on Jimmie's side as a wordless
+rebuke to my impertinence was so delicious that Jimmie gave me a solemn
+wink, as he said:
+
+"Now she has only voiced the opinion of the world.  Let us face the
+question once for all.  Why did you marry me?"
+
+Mrs. Jimmie coloured all over her creamy pale face.  She looked in
+distress from me to Jimmie, divided between her desire to express in
+one burst of eloquence the fulness of her reasons for marrying the man
+she adored, and her reluctance to display emotion before me.  She took
+everything with such edifying gravity.  It never dawned on her that he
+was teasing her.
+
+"Don't torment her so!" I said.  "Mrs. Jimmie, I admire your taste, but
+I admire Jimmie's more."
+
+"Thank you, dear," she said, seriously, but still with that soft blush
+on her cheeks.  Then she added, quietly, "Jimmie never torments me."
+
+"_Mon Dieu_," I said, under my breath, with a fierce glance at Jimmie.
+But he only shook his head, as one would who had not "fetched it" that
+time, but who meant to keep on trying.
+
+
+Another knock.  Mary again, with the mail.  She was swallowing
+violently, and her eyes were full of tears.  I took up the letters and
+tore them open.
+
+Sixteen requests for autographs, only one enclosing a stamp.  Twelve
+letters from young girls, telling Aubrey their stellar capabilities.
+Four requests for photographs.  Some personal letters, and this choice
+effusion, which I copy _verbatim et spellatim_.
+
+
+"DEAR SIR: Please tell me how you Study human natur do you travle
+extensively through close Social relations or do you Study phenology.
+You illustrate it So accrately that I would be pleased to know your
+method and if you don't think I am too cheeky, would be pleased to know
+your income.  I remain yours with respect."
+
+
+I gave a little shriek of delight, and rushed back to the Jimmies with
+renewed enthusiasm.  This unknown man had inspired me afresh.
+
+
+_Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie at Canterbury_.
+
+But although Jimmie growls, there is no one in the world who is so
+excellent a travelling companion as he, for he is always ready for
+everything.  You cannot suggest any jaunt too wild or too impossible
+for Jimmie not to bend his energies toward making it possible.  The
+chief reason that Mrs. Jimmie likes me so much is because I admire
+Jimmie, and the reason that Jimmie likes me is because I adore Mrs.
+Jimmie.
+
+So I was not at all surprised to find ourselves at Canterbury on
+Saturday afternoon, after a short run from London through one of the
+loveliest counties of England.  Such bewitching shades of green.  Such
+lovely little hills,--friendly, companionable little hills.  I can't
+bear mountains.  It is like trying to be intimate with queens and
+empresses.  They overpower me.
+
+Canterbury was enchanted ground to me.  We found the very old cellar
+over which stood the Canterbury Inn.  I could picture the whole thing
+to myself.  I even reconciled Chaucer's spelling with the quaintness
+and curiousness of the old, old town.
+
+We strolled up to St. Martin's Church, said to be the oldest church in
+England, and wandered around the churchyard, filled with glorious roses
+creeping everywhere over tombs so old that the lettering is illegible.
+When the sun set, we had the most beautiful view of Canterbury to be
+had anywhere, and one of the most beautiful in all England.
+
+We sat down to a cold supper that night in a charming little inn with
+diamond-paned windows.  But as Jimmie loves Paris cooking and would
+almost barter his chances of heaven for a smoking dish of _sole a la
+Normande_ at the Cafe Marguery, he cast looks of deep aversion at a
+side table loaded with all sorts of cold and jellied meats.  His choice
+of evils finally fell upon chicken, and to the purple-faced waiter with
+blue-white eyes, who asked what part of the fowl he would prefer,
+Jimmie said:
+
+"The second joint."
+
+The waiter frowned and went away.  Presently he came back and asked
+Jimmie over again, and again Jimmie said, "The second joint."
+
+He went away and came back with a fine cut of beef.
+
+"What's this?" said Jimmie.  "I ordered chicken."
+
+"Yes, sir!" said the waiter, mopping his brow, "What part would you
+like, sir?"
+
+"The second joint," said Jimmie, with ominous distinctness.  "That is
+if English chickens _grow_ any."
+
+"Yes, sir, yes, sir," said the poor waiter.
+
+He hurried away, and finally brought up the head waiter.
+
+"What part of the fowl would you like, sir?  This man did not
+understand your order."
+
+Jimmie leaned back in his chair, and looked up at the waiters without
+speaking.
+
+"How many parts are there to a chicken?" said Jimmie.  "As your man
+does not seem to speak English, you name them over, and when you come
+to the one I want, I'll scream."
+
+Both waiters shifted their weight to the other foot and looked
+embarrassed.
+
+"I want the knee of the chicken," said Jimmie.  "From the knee-cap to
+the thigh.  That part which supports the fowl when it walks.  Not the
+breast nor the neck nor the back nor yet the ankle, but the upper, the
+superior part of the leg.  Do you understand?"
+
+"The upper part of the leg?  I beg pardon, sir, but the waiter
+understood that you wanted a cut from the second joint on that table,
+sir."
+
+Jimmie simply looked at him.
+
+"The English speak a dialect somewhat resembling the American language,
+Jimmie," I said, soothingly.
+
+
+A knock at the door, and Bee appeared.
+
+"Should Wives Work?" she said.  "Answer that offhand!  There is a
+reporter down-stairs for the _Sunday Gorgon_, who wants five hundred
+words from you which he is prepared to take down in shorthand.  Should
+Wives Work?"
+
+"Should wives work?" I cried, ferociously.  "Would they if they got a
+chance?  Oh, Bee, for heaven's sake, go down and tell him I'm out.
+Please, Bee."
+
+"No, just give me a few ideas, and I'll go down and enlarge on them,
+and make up your five hundred words.  Your opinion is so valuable.  You
+don't know a single thing about it!"
+
+I got rid of her by some diplomacy, and returned to the Jimmies.
+
+_Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie at Canterbury_.
+
+"Never mind her, dear," said Mrs. Jimmie.  "Think what a beautiful,
+restful day we shall have to-morrow, wandering about Canterbury
+cathedral.  I can't think of a more beautiful way to spend Sunday.
+London is simply dreadful on Sunday."
+
+"London is simply dreadful at any time," said Jimmie.  "Every
+restaurant, even the Savoy, closes at midnight.  I got shut into the
+Criterion the other evening in the grill, and had to come out through
+the hotel, and they unlocked more doors and unclanked more chains than
+I've heard since I was the prisoner of Chillon.  Talk about going wrong
+in London.  You simply couldn't.  Goodness is thrust upon you, if you
+are travelling.  If you are a native and belong to the clubs--that's
+different.  But the way they close things in England at the very time
+of all others that you want them to be open--"
+
+
+Bee entered.
+
+"Excuse me," she said, in a whisper.  Bee thinks if she whispers it is
+not an interruption.  "A committee from the Jewish Hospital would like
+to know if Aubrey will present a set of his books to the Hospital
+Library."
+
+"If he does, that will be sixty dollars that he will have paid out this
+week, for his own books, for the privilege of giving them away.  But as
+this is the last hospital in town that he has _not_ contributed to,
+tell them yes, and then set the dog on them!" I said, savagely.
+
+"You poor thing!" said Bee.  "It's a shame the way people torment you."
+
+Billy crowded past his mother, and climbed into my lap.
+
+"Tell me a story, dear Tattah," said this born wheedler, patting my
+face with his little black paw.
+
+"No, now Billy--" began Bee.
+
+"Let him stay," I cried, casting down my pen.  "It is so seldom that he
+cuddles that I'll sacrifice myself upon the altar of aunthood.  Well,
+once upon a time, Billy, there was a dear little blue hen who stole
+away--sit still now!  You've more legs than a centipede!--who stole
+away every day and went under the barn where it was so cool and shady,
+and laid a lovely little smooth, cream-coloured egg.  Then when she had
+laid it, she was so proud that she could never help coming out and
+cackling at the top of her voice, 'Cut-cut-cut-ka-dah-cut!'  And then
+the lady of the house would run out and say, 'Oh, there's that naughty
+little blue hen cackling over a new-laid egg which I did want so much
+to make an omelette, but I don't know where she has laid it.  The
+naughty little blue hen!'  So the poor lady would be obliged to use the
+red hen's eggs for the omelette, because the little blue hen laid
+_hers_ under the barn.
+
+"Well, after the little blue hen had laid six beautiful cream-coloured
+eggs, she began to sit on them day after day, covering them with her
+feathers, and tucking her lovely little blue wings down around the
+edges of her nest to keep the eggs warm, and day after day she sat and
+dreamed of six darling little yellow, fluffy chickens with brown wings
+and sparkling black eyes and dear little peepy voices, and she was so
+happy in thinking of her little children that she was as patient as
+possible, and never seemed to care that all the other hens and chickens
+were running about in the warm yellow sunshine and snapping up lively
+little shiny bugs with their yellow beaks.
+
+"Well, after awhile, this dear little patient blue hen heard the
+funniest little tapping, tapping, tapping under her wings."  Billy's
+eyes nearly bulged out of his head as he tapped the arm of the chair as
+I did.  "And then she felt the most curious little fluttering under her
+wings--oh, Billy, _what_ do you think this little blue hen felt
+fluttering under her wings?"
+
+"A _omelette_!" said Billy, excitedly.
+
+
+I finished the Jimmies as an anticlimax.
+
+
+_Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie at Canterbury_.
+
+It did not disturb Jimmie the next day to discover that Canterbury
+Cathedral is _closed to visitors on Sunday_.
+
+_We_ saw it on Monday.
+
+
+After such a day it was no surprise to me to have Aubrey come home so
+dead tired that our strenuous evening was given up, and we all went out
+in Cary's new motor-car instead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A LETTER FROM JIMMIE
+
+Jimmie's "bread-and-butter" letter gave me such joy that I copy it
+here, which shows how little I care for the conventions of life,
+inasmuch as I reproduce none of the others.  Lady Mary's, Mrs.
+Jimmie's, Artie Beg's, Cary's, Sir Wemyss's, Captain Featherstone's,
+were all models of propriety, and, except that they are friends of
+mine, I would add, of stupidity.  Bee's--Bee's showed me a dozen ways
+in which I might have improved my hospitality, and hers, at least, does
+not come under the head of the name.  But Jimmie's!  Here it is:
+
+
+"Wretched creature and your wholly irreproachable husband:
+
+"Ordinarily I would simply write to say that I had had a bully good
+time at the iniquitous place where you hang out, and by so doing--were
+I an ordinary man--would consider that I had paid my just debts and was
+quits with the world--and with you.  But not being ordinary--on the
+contrary, and without undue pride, denominating myself as a most
+extraordinary, rare, and orchid-like male creature, I feel that the
+appended narrative, albeit I do not figure therein as Sir Galahad or
+King Arthur, is no more than your just due.  I relinquish the steel
+helmet and holy grail adjuncts, and exploit myself to your ribald gaze
+and half-witted laughter just as I is.
+
+"But first, let me rid myself of my obligations.  I did enjoy every
+moment of my stay, and I recall, with a particular and somewhat
+pardonable pride, that you, Faith, on one occasion, took off my
+shoes,--a menial duty which I shall hereafter exact of you wherever we
+may be.  Don't complain.  It was yourself established the precedent,
+somewhat, if you will remember, against my will.
+
+"Aubrey, as usual, was all that was kind.
+
+"My duty now being done, I will proceed to narrate something which wild
+horses could not draw from me for anybody but you.
+
+"To begin with, you have been told that we are building a house, and
+you know how interested I am in all its details.  For example, a pile
+of bricks had been left on the third floor, which plainly belonged to
+the cellar.  I had to come up on ladders, the hole for the stairways
+being left open.  As the pulley for hoisting and lowering materials was
+still there, and an empty barrel stood invitingly near, I decided to
+assist Nature by lowering those bricks to their final resting-place.  I
+therefore filled the barrel with them, and hooked the barrel on to the
+pulley.
+
+"Now, Faith, as you have frequently remarked, I am thin, but just how
+thin I did not realize until I had yanked that barrel of bricks over
+this yawning aperture.  The first thing that attracted my attention was
+the bumping of my spine against the roof--or ceiling, or whatever was
+highest in the house.
+
+"I had presence of mind enough to kick at the barrel as I flew past it,
+so that it wouldn't dent my white waistcoat.  The rope slid with
+violence through my hands, taking my palms with it.  As I was pasted
+tranquilly against the skylight, and wondering how I was to get down,
+the problem was at once solved for me, but not to my satisfaction, by
+the bottom of the damned barrel giving out.  Picture to yourself the
+consequences.
+
+"The bricks being thus left on Mother Earth, I, with indescribable
+rapidity, having still hold of the rope, passed the staves in mid-air,
+as I hastily descended, lighting in a sitting posture on the pile of
+bricks.  The sensation, Faith and Aubrey, is not pleasant.
+
+"However, I possess a philosophic nature and a sense of humour.  I
+realized that the worst was over, and that I was well out of my scrape.
+I therefore released the rope, and fell to examining my bruises.  Will
+you believe it?  Those wretched barrel-staves had no more consideration
+than to descend crushingly upon my unprotected skull, and to remove
+portions of my ears in so doing.
+
+"I got out of there.  I don't care for new houses, and carpenters may
+leave bricks on the piano hereafter for all of me.
+
+"I have not told my wife.  She is sensitive, and loves me.  As neither
+of these aspersions describe you and Aubrey, I am impelled to state the
+incident to you, hoping that it may give your ribald selves a moment's
+diversion.  I called on Lady Mary at the Cambridge, and told this to
+her, and she laughed until she cried.  Then she said:
+
+"'Oh, Mr. Jimmie, promise me that you will tell the whole thing to
+mamma--just as you have told it to me!'
+
+"Imagine telling this to the Duchess of Strowther!
+
+"Again, I repeat, I enjoyed myself on your ranch.  I particularly
+enjoyed seeing Bee do the bucolic.
+
+"Give the enclosed to Billy, and tell the old man to buy something with
+it to remember me by.
+
+"And with kind remembrances to yourself and Aubrey, I am
+
+"Your slave,
+
+"JIMMIE."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE BREAKING UP OF MARY
+
+Prosperity disagrees with some people.  But with Mary I have always
+thought it was jealousy.
+
+As long as we had no one but her, and she practically ran the house and
+us, too, she was the same faithful, honest, sympathetic soul, who first
+won our young love at the Waldorf during our honeymoon, but after we
+came to Peach Orchard and needed old Amos for the horses, and a
+gardener, and two extra maids in the house, Mary's thrift took wings,
+and no Liande de Pougy or Otero could exceed her extravagance in
+ordering things she did not want, and never could use.
+
+I noticed that the bills were becoming perfectly unbearable, and, never
+dreaming that our good, faithful Mary could be at fault,--she, who used
+to declare that she had walked ten blocks to find lettuce at eight
+cents a head instead of nine, and who never could be persuaded that her
+time at home was worth far more to me than that extra cent,--I spoke to
+the grocer and asked him what he meant by such prices.
+
+"It isn't the prices, Mrs. Jardine--it's the quantity you have been
+ordering.  Are you running a hotel?"
+
+"No," I said.  "Not that I know of."
+
+"Well," he answered.   "Look here; here's three gallons of olive-oil
+you've ordered in one week."
+
+"Three gallons!" I gasped.  "You mean three bottles."
+
+"No, ma'am!  Three gallons!"
+
+"Who ordered it?"
+
+"That there old woman of yours,--the one that cusses so."
+
+"You mean Mary?" I asked, incredulously.
+
+"I don't know what her name is, but I know her tongue when I hear it.
+A white-haired old lady with specs."
+
+"That must be Mary," I mused.
+
+"Well, 'm, she said Mr. Jardine ate salad twice a day, and needed lots
+of oil."
+
+"So he does," I observed, drily, "but he doesn't bathe in it."
+
+This pleasantry was quite lost on the grocer, for he hastened to agree
+with me, with a--
+
+"Sure he doesn't," and a convincing wag of the head, as who should say,
+"Let no man accuse my friend, Mr. Jardine, of bathing in olive-oil,
+while I am about!"
+
+It was very soothing.
+
+"Well, just send it back, Mrs. Jardine," said he, presently, "it's in
+gallon cans and sealed."
+
+I went home with wrath in my soul, but intending to modify my bill by
+at least three gallons of olive-oil.  To my horror, however, I found
+that Mary had opened all three cans, and filled, perhaps, but one cruet
+from each.
+
+Mary's face fell when I accusingly pointed this fact out to her.
+
+"I forgot that I had any, Missis dear," she said, humbly.  "I know you
+hate to run out of things."
+
+"So I do," I said, severely, "but ten dollars' worth of olive-oil is
+rather too much to forget at a time, and there is absolutely no excuse
+for your opening all three of them."
+
+"I know it, Missis dear."
+
+I opened my mouth to say more, but her penitence, her humility, the
+sight of her old white head, moved me.  "Suppose," I said to myself,
+"that, in addition to her extravagance, she was as impudent, as brazen,
+and as defiant as most servants?  What would I do then?"
+
+I turned away grateful for small mercies.
+
+Soon after this, we began to take our meals out-of-doors.  I had made a
+little lawn near the house, and surrounded it with a wire fencing, over
+which sweet peas were climbing.  In the centre of this patch of grass
+was spread a rug made of green denim, just the colour of the grass, and
+on this stood a dinner-table of weathered oak.  Here, in fine weather,
+we took all our meals.  Breakfast was served anywhere from six to ten,
+and by looking from your bedroom windows, you might see a man in white
+flannels, smoking a cigarette and reading the morning paper over coffee
+or rolls or a dish of strawberries on thin green leaves.
+
+The women--until they had once tried the open-air breakfast--always
+preferred their coffee in their rooms.  But, if I do say it myself,
+Peach Orchard at six o'clock in the morning is the most beautiful spot
+on earth.  (The Angel has just thoughtfully observed that for me that
+is a very moderate statement.)
+
+One day while Lady Mary and Sir Wemyss were with us, I made a lobster
+salad for them.  I always use nasturtium stems in the mayonnaise for a
+lobster, and mix the blossoms in for garnishing and to serve it with.
+
+This suggested the colour scheme of yellow, so I decorated entirely
+with nasturtiums, and, beginning with grapefruit, I planned a yellow
+luncheon throughout.
+
+The Angel had seen me fussing with things in the servants' dining-room,
+and knew that I had made a salad.  I simply mention this to show why I
+continue to call him the Angel, though the honeymoon has waxed and
+waned many, many times.
+
+Now I admit that _I_ am forgetful.  I admit that _I_ am absent-minded,
+and I furthermore beg to state that with the Jimmies and the Beguelins
+and Bee tearing subjects for conversation into mental rags and tatters
+for the admiration and astonishment of the Lombards, I think I might be
+excused for not noticing that Mary forgot the salad.  She forgot it as
+completely as if salad had never dawned upon the culinary horizon.  The
+cook, not having made it, naturally dismissed it from _her_ mind, but
+_Mary_ had helped me make it.  _Mary_ put it in the ice-box with her
+own hands.  _Mary_ knew how I had worked over it.  Drat her!
+
+When all was over, the Angel strolled over to me and murmured:
+
+"I thought you were making that salad for luncheon, dear."
+
+I sprang from my chair as if shot, and stared at him wildly.  He
+regarded me with alarm.
+
+"So I _was_!" I shrieked, in a whisper.  I wrung my hands, and so great
+was my anguish that tears came into my eyes.
+
+"There!  There, dearie!" said Aubrey, kindly.  "Don't mind, little
+girl!  It would have been too much with all the rest of your lovely
+luncheon.  It will go _much_ better tonight."
+
+"You are an angel," I said, brokenly, "but I'll feel a little easier in
+my mind after I have killed Mary."
+
+It was hot, but I ran all the way to the house.  I found Mary.  The
+light of battle was in my eye, and she quailed before I spoke.
+
+"Where was that lobster salad?" I demanded.
+
+She turned pale, and sank into a chair.  I simply stood glaring at her.
+She peeked through her fingers to see if I were relenting as usual, but
+as I still looked blood-thirsty, she began to cry.  She covered her
+head with her apron, and rocked herself back and forth.
+
+"I forgot it, Missis dear!  Kick me if you want to.  I'll not say I
+don't deserve it, but since I burst me stomach I can't remember
+anything!"
+
+"Since you _what_?" I gasped, in horror.
+
+Mary took down her apron in triumph, and looked as important as though
+she had a funeral to go to.
+
+"Didn't you know, Missis?   In my mother's last sickness--God rest her
+soul!--I had to lift her every day, and I burst me stomach.  The doctor
+said so.  That's why I forget things!"
+
+I stood staring at her.  She was nodding her head, and smoothing her
+apron over her knees with a look of the greatest complacency.
+
+I thought of many, many things to say.  And in several languages.  But
+all of them put together would have been inadequate, so, without one
+word, I turned and walked slowly and thoughtfully away.
+
+That did not phase Mary in the least.  She had looked for voluble and
+valuable sympathy--such as generally pours from me on the slightest
+provocation.  She was so disappointed that she grew ugly and broke a
+soap-dish.
+
+"Aubrey," I said to the Angel, "how is your memory connected with your
+stomach?"
+
+"Very nearly," he answered, pleasantly.  "My stomach reminds me of many
+things,--when it's time to eat, and when it's time to drink."
+
+"So then, if anything happened to that reminder, you might forget even
+to get dinner if you were a cook, or to serve it if you were a butler?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"I see," I answered, thoughtfully.
+
+"If I might beg to inquire the wherefore of this thirst for
+information--" hazarded the Angel, politely.
+
+"Oh, nothing much.  Only Mary says she has burst her stomach, and
+that's why she forgets everything."
+
+Fortunately, Aubrey was sitting in his Morris chair.  If he had flung
+himself about in that manner on a bench, he would have broken his back.
+
+"Mary," said Aubrey, when he could speak, "ought to go in a book."
+
+"Mary," I said, with equal emphasis, "ought to go into an asylum."
+
+It was not long after that that old Katie, the cook, came up-stairs,
+and beckoned me from the room.
+
+"You said, Mrs. Jardine, that you'd never seen butter made.  Now I've
+got the first churning from the Guernsey cow in the churn, and if you
+would like to see it--"
+
+She never finished the sentence, for I rushed past her so that she had
+to follow me into the milk-room.  (Bee wanted me to call it "the
+dairy.")
+
+I sat by while Katie churned and told stories.  Then while she was
+turning it out, and I was raving over the colour of it, I heard a
+suspicious sniffing behind me, and behold, there was Mary, with her
+apron to her eyes, murmuring, brokenly, "My poor dear mother!  Oh, my
+poor dear mother!"
+
+Seeing that she had attracted my attention, she walked away, stumbling
+over the threshold to emphasize her grief.
+
+"What's the matter with Mary, Mrs. Jardine?" asked old Katie,
+wonderingly.
+
+"Her mother used to churn, she told me, and I suppose it brings it all
+back to her to see you churn," I said, with as straight a face as I
+could muster.
+
+"Dear me!" said Katie, in high disgust.  "_I_ had a mother and _she_
+used to churn, but it doesn't turn me into salt water every time I hear
+the dasher going!"
+
+Katie is a shrewd woman, so I said nothing in answer to that.  Finally
+Katie lifted her chin--a way she had--and added:
+
+"I'm thinking it sits bad on her mind to see you in here with me,
+instead of with her!"
+
+As I still said nothing, she apparently repented herself, for she said,
+a moment later:
+
+"But Mary was mighty fond of her old father and mother.  She keeps
+mementoes of them ahl over the place.  She has now what she calls his
+Polean pitcher--"
+
+"His what?"
+
+"Shure _I_ don't know!  But she says it is.  It's got a man on the
+outside, and you pours out of his three-cornered hat."
+
+"Oh, yes," I said.  "I remember now.  What did you say she called it?"
+
+"There it is now, on the shelf above your head.  But how it got there,
+_I_ don't know.  And Mary would be throwing fits if she saw it."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because she says her father used to send her every night, when she was
+a little girl, to get his Polean pitcher filled with beer.  She says
+she minds him every time she looks at it--Gahd rest his soul."
+
+I turned and looked at the little squat figure of Napoleon.  It was the
+pitcher the little man had given Mary for getting our trade for him,
+when we were first married.
+
+"She cried once when I put some cream in it to make pot-cheese," said
+Katie.  "And she emptied it and washed it and kissed it; then she stood
+it on th' shelf with her picture of the Pope that you gave her."
+
+Just then Mary, as if suspecting something, appeared at the door.  She
+looked suspiciously from one to the other.
+
+"I was just afther telling the Missis, Mary, how careful you are of the
+Polean pitcher you used to rush the growler with for your poor dear
+father," said Katie, with a shy grin that was gone before we fairly saw
+it.
+
+Mary turned away without a word.  She never spoke to me on the subject,
+nor I to her.
+
+The next day a gipsy fortune-teller came to Peach Orchard, and told the
+fortunes of all the servants.  She predicted a rich husband for Katie,
+and a fit of sickness for Mary.  I think she could not have pleased
+each better.
+
+That night we were sitting in the Angel's porch-study, when the most
+dreadful howls and groans began to emanate from the kitchen.  We all
+hurried to the scene, and there, prone upon the floor, lay Mary,
+weeping and twitching herself and moaning that she was going to die.
+
+"It's the fortune-teller," said Katie in my ear.  But Aubrey heard.
+
+"Get up, Mary!" he said, sternly.  (I did not know the Angel _could_ be
+so stern.)
+
+To the surprise of all of us, Mary obediently scrambled to her feet.
+
+"Now go to your room, and go properly to bed.  Katie will help you.
+Then I shall telephone for the doctor."
+
+Mary began to look frightened.
+
+"Don't send for the doctor, Boss dear," she pleaded.  "I'll be better
+soon.  These attacks don't mean anything."
+
+"The gipsy predicted that you were going to have a fit of sickness, and
+I believe it has come," said Aubrey, seriously.  "Take her to bed
+quickly, Katie.  I don't want her to die in the kitchen."
+
+The two old women stumbled up the back stairway together.
+
+"Oh, Aubrey, what is it?" I whispered.
+
+"It is the breaking up of Mary," said the Angel when we were alone.
+"It has been going on for some time.  Either jealousy, or old age, or
+imagination, or incipient insanity has seized our poor old
+servant-friend, and well-nigh wrecked her.  I have tried various
+remedies, but all have failed.  I didn't want to bother you with it
+before, but the fact is, Faith dear, Mary must go.  She has outlived
+her usefulness with us."
+
+"I've been afraid of it for some time," I answered.  "But it seems too
+bad.  She has been with us through some strenuous times, Aubrey."
+
+"I know, dear, and I have no idea of turning the old creature adrift.
+The last time I was in town I spoke to Doctor North and arranged to
+send Mary to his sanatorium for a month."
+
+"You are good, Aubrey."
+
+Aubrey smoked in silence for a few moments.
+
+"Yes, Mary has been with us through deep waters and hard fights, and
+never has she flinched.  Perhaps it is her nature.  Perhaps she just
+can't stand the lameness of prosperity."
+
+In a day or two we sent Mary to Doctor North's sanatorium, a badly
+scared and deeply repentant old woman, and Aubrey wired Doctor North:
+
+"Is this a genuine case, or is she faking?"
+
+The answer came back:
+
+"Faking."
+
+Poor Mary!  She escaped from the sanatorium on the third day.  But we
+never saw her again, and though we often write to her and send her
+things, she never answers.
+
+I think it was the "Polean pitcher."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+AND THEY LIVED HAPPY EVER AFTER
+
+End of the story--end of the chapter--end of the book!
+
+And what could be more satisfactory than the ending of the old
+fairy-tales,--"and so they were married, and lived happy ever after"?
+Not for them the strenuous adjustment of temper and temperament, of
+extravagance and poverty, with the divorce court at the end of the
+second year.  In the blessed tales of one's childhood, they married and
+lived happily.
+
+Ay, and for ever after!
+
+It is a long time,--but I look forward to it without fear, yea, even
+with gladness.  Not that I would so dare, did it depend upon _my_
+temper, _my_ moods, _my_ days of ailing and depression, but ah, I
+depend upon my husband's.  He has his days of ailing and depression,
+but I never know of them until they are past.  He has his illnesses,
+but he conceals them from me.  If things go wrong, his face only grows
+brighter for my eyes to rest upon, nor is he ever too busy or too
+preoccupied to stop his work and soothe my nervous fears.  Disagreeable
+people are not allowed to annoy me.  Disagreeable letters are held over
+until their sting has grown less.  Disagreeable remarks are robbed of
+their venom by his kindly interpretation.  He stands as a bulwark
+between me and the world.
+
+"And so they were married, and lived happily ever after."
+
+To live happily means for one or the other to ignore self.  Aubrey is
+the epitome of selflessness.  So that I claim no credit for the
+noiseless wheels of our domestic machinery, for over trifles I am
+inclined to go up in a puff of vapour and blue smoke, and I love my own
+way.
+
+But somehow, after a year or two of seeing Aubrey give his way up to
+mine, without a frown or a word of remonstrance, and with such a look
+of unfathomable love in his wonderful eyes, I rather lost the taste for
+demanding my own way.  Even when I got it some of its flavour had
+disappeared.  Was I contrary?  I do not know.  I only knew that I began
+to pretend--I had to pretend, or Aubrey would not have allowed it--to
+want the things that he wanted, and to want them done in the way he
+liked.  And with such a rich reward!  Do all sacrifices made for love
+carry with them such immediate and rich rewards, I wonder?  Can I ever
+forget the Angel's face when it dawned upon him that I was giving up my
+way for his?  He realized it first as he was standing in front of me,
+filling his pipe.  I saw it come first into his eyes, then tremble upon
+his sensitive lips, then he threw aside his precious pipe and knelt
+down beside my chair, and gathered me all up in his arms, and hid his
+face in my shoulder.  What he said I shall never tell to any one, but I
+shall remember it in my grave, and it will be surging in my ears in the
+other world.  Is sacrifice hard for one you love?
+
+"And so they were married, and lived happily ever after."
+
+That, in the old-fashioned story, was the end of everything.  Married
+love evidently took no hold upon the youthful imagination, or upon that
+of our little selves.  We wanted all the anguish to come to the unwed,
+and the happiness and dulness of unchanging bliss to descend upon the
+bridal pair.
+
+Then somebody discovered that marriage was not the end; it was only the
+beginning, and somebody acted on this wonderful discovery and began to
+tell the varying fortunes of those stupid, cut and dried, buried and
+laid away persons, the bride and groom, whom we had hitherto parted
+with at the church door.  It was as if the carriage door slammed upon
+their happiness, and ended their career.  Their ultimate fate was for
+ever settled.  They died to the world with the hurling of the rice, and
+vanished from the sight of readers with the casting of the old shoe.
+
+Then we learned that life began with marriage.  Has our taste changed,
+or have we only awakened to the truth?
+
+Ask any woman who is happily married, and see if she says she can ever
+remember anything before she became a wife.  I remember that certain
+things did happen before I met Aubrey, but I recall them as I sometimes
+try to tell him a dream which is indistinct and somewhat unreal.
+
+But that is because I have found, out of all the world, my mate.
+
+How does any one dare to marry?  As I look around me, at the mistakes
+other women have made, I wonder that I had the courage to marry even
+the Angel.  For supposing he hadn't been the right man!  I'd have been
+dead by this time, so there's that comfort anyway.
+
+But he was!
+
+To those who know the Angel, I need say no more.  And even to those who
+never have seen him, and never will know him except in this chronicle,
+the wonder of it can never cease, for so few women, out of all the men
+in the universe, find their mates, as I have found mine.
+
+Men propose and women marry, but the misfits are palpable all through
+life to others, and frequently to themselves.  They look back and
+wonder, when it is too late, how they ever imagined that they could
+live together without wanting to murder each other daily.  Yet they
+console themselves with the thought that theirs is only an ordinary
+marriage, containing no more jarring notes than most.  Yet if they ever
+stopped to think what might have been--if they dared look into the
+inner chamber where hope lies dead, they would wonder that their misery
+was not so stamped upon their faces that people would turn to look at
+them in the street and stare at the hopelessness of their broken lives.
+Do the unhappily married ever dare pause to think of the real mate of
+each, lost somewhere in the wide world, perhaps going about, ever
+seeking, seeking, perhaps greatly mismated and equally unhappy?
+
+  "Two shall be born the whole wide world apart
+  And each in different tongues and have no thought
+  Each of the other's being and no heed;
+  And these, o'er unknown seas to unknown lands
+  Shall cross, escaping wreck, defying death
+  And all unconsciously shape every act
+  And send each wandering step to this one end
+  That, one day, out of darkness they shall meet
+  And read life's meaning in each other's eyes.
+
+  "And two shall walk some narrow way of life
+  So nearly side by side, that should one turn
+  Ever so little space to left or right
+  They needs must stand acknowledged face to face.
+  And yet, with wistful eyes that never meet,
+  With groping hands that never clasp, and lips
+  Calling in vain to ears that never hear
+  They seek each other all their weary days
+  And die unsatisfied--and this is Fate!"
+
+
+When I realize the beautiful and terrible truth of these two verses, I
+grow dumb with terror, and turn filled to overflowing with gratitude
+that, no matter what others may have done or will do; in spite of sad
+books and mournful plays; in spite of winter winds and illness and
+sorrow and the bitter disappointment of hope deferred; in spite of
+bodily ills and heart sickness and the times when even the strongest
+soul faints by the roadside, no matter what betide, I can always turn
+my face homeward, and there will be Aubrey.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AT HOME WITH THE JARDINES***
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