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Far from the maddening girls.

3 1924 022 086 031

Cornell University
Library

The original of tliis book is in
tine Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright restrictions in
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http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022086031

FAR FROM THE
MADDENING GIRLS

AT THIS POINT GAL\'1N AURUPTLY DISSOLVED IN TEARS

FAR FROM THE
MADDENING GIRLS

BY GUY WETMORE CARRYL

NEW YORK

McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.

MCMIV

Copyright, 1904, by
McCLURE. PHILLIPS & CO

Published, November, 1904

Second Impression

Copyright, 1904, by the Curtis Publishing Company

In furtherance of an unfulfilled
intention, this book is dedicated to
the author's dear friend and com-
rade, Henry Davis Sleeper.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

At this point Galvin abruptly dissolved in tears Frontispiece

Facing
Page

I was covered from top to toe with excelsior .... 52

I will not dwell upon that most painful fifteen minutes

at the notion counter 66

The most expansive smile I have ever seen .... 68

It might have passed muster as a balloon 98

Her capacity for dusting was inexhaustible .... 136

" You refuse me ? " I exclaimed .... ... 150

She went directly to Mrs. Doane, and put her arms

around her 182

CHAPTER ONE

I was on the threshold, so to speak, of thirty
when my Uncle Ezra gave his first evidence
of being aware of my existence by leaving me
a competency. He had never seen me, nor I
him, and he mis-spelled my very name several
times in the course of his will; but, neverthe-
less, he contrived, in this manner, to awaken
in me what I may call a posthumous affection
for him, which I have carefully cherished
ever since. The justice of this sentiment will
be clear when I say that by this fortuitous
turn of his pen the estimable old gentleman
had made practicable the most ardent desire
of my heart.

I was utterly and consumedly weary of be-
ing a single man. I aspired to enter a more
admired and more admirable estate; to have
[3]

Far From The Maddening Girls

done with landladies and table d'hote dinners;
to be sure, under all conditions, of finding a
button where a button ought to be; to know
the unspeakable wealth of comfort and se-
clusion which is miraculously packed into
the limited compass of that little word
"Home!" In short, I yearned to become a
bachelor, and this was precisely what the be-
nignant performance of my Uncle Ezra en-
abled me to do.

Perhaps it is necessary to explain that one
cannot be a thoroughly authentic bachelor
under five thousand a year. Short of that in-
come, one may, of course, remain unmarried ;
but to remain unmarried means nothing more
than to be a single man — a creature, that is,
commonly supposed to be conditioned not so
much by his inclinations as by material cir-
cumstance. Who, pray, is going to believe
that he is single because he chooses to be,
instead of because he must ? He may have all
the courage of his conviction, but he can
[4J

Far From The Maddening Girls

never hope to impress others with the con-
viction of his courage. Possessing the keen-
est distaste for a life in the stocks or under the
bonds of matrimony, he is yet as helpless to
prove this aversion as would be a fresh egg to
substantiate its very possible disinclination
for becoming a chick.

"A single man, indeed!" says the world.
"And why not, so long as his salary, as every
one knows, is but thirty-five dollars a week ?
Humph! Just give him the means to marry
upon, and let us see how soon our misogamist
will change his mind!"

That is it. Give the egg an incubator, and
see how long we shall have to wait before it
turns into a chick, and begins to peep, and
peck, and preen, in a manner identical with
that of all chicks that have gone before ! They
have no one to believe in their claim to orig-
inality, the unhatched egg and the unmar-
ried man! The world has the unique dis-
tinction of being too much with them and
[5]

Far From The Maddening Girls

too much against them at one and the same
time.

But the single man of means— whom I have
chosen to distinguish as the bachelor proper
— that is a very different story! Even the most
skeptical must allow that he is the product of
his inclinations, not of his restrictions. He is
magnificent in his isolation, in his independ-
ence of that preposterous, corpulent little boy,
with the wings and the bow and arrows, who
sets half of the trouble in the world afoot. He
knows what is best for him— yes, indeed!
And, if he ever feels that it is necessary to his
peace of mind to cumber himself with some-
thing which is, at once, exorbitantly costly
and readily deranged, then I warrant you he
will have the good sense to see that what he
wants is an automobile, and not a wife. An
automobile keeps up a continual clamour
whenever you take it out : an automobile gets
into the habit of blowing you up at regular in-
tervals, and of running down your neighbours
[6]

Far From The Maddening Girls

whenever opportunity offers: an automobile
is forever in need of new and expensive trim-
mings and fittings — but then, you can always
exchange an automobile for something use-
ful. I can say all the rest of a wife— but I can't
say that !

A man once delivered me a homily on wed-
ded bliss, taking as his text a bird's nest
which he had discovered in some shrubbery.
He would have drawn tears from a stone with
his picture of the fond couple building their
little home, rearing the tender brood, and
giving them lessons in singing and aerial
navigation; and, finally, parting the shrub-
bery, he bade me look within.

" There's a lesson for you!" he exclaimed
triumphantly.

I told him he was quite right. Indeed, I
never remember having been brought in con-
tact with a more eloquent parable. The par-
ent birds were from home, and the young ones
were eagerly expecting their return. There
[7]

Far From The Maddening Girls

was nothing in sight hut bills! Forthwith, I
determined to become a bachelor.

Now a bachelor, like all superior beings,
has his responsibilities. Your mere single
man may be content with a furnished room
and a continual round of the restaurants ; but
it is incumbent upon the bachelor to make
a more conspicuous success of the life to which
he thus stands pledged. He must justify him-
self in the eyes of society. He must meet the
boasted superiority of existence a deux on its
own ground, and put it to rout with irrefuta-
ble demonstration. He must have a house,
and equip and order this in such a fashion
that the married couples for ten miles around
will fall down with one accord and grovel.
His peace and prosperity must be so evident
and so eloquent as to cause the Green-eyed
Monster to harry and lay waste that entire
countryside. In short, he must preach with
irresistible finality the fact that a man is
happier without a wife than with one; and if
[8]

Far From The Maddening Girls

so be tliat he arrives at the point of causing
married women to sniff and married men to
sigh, then he may know that his demonstra-
tion is a success and the lesson to be drawn
therefrom unanswerable.

So, at the outset, I was confronted with the
palpable necessity of building a house. Dis-
tinctly, there was no time to be lost, now that
Uncle Ezra's means were mine, for so long as
a bachelor is not fairly and firmly entrenched
in his stronghold there is a peril as inimical
to his security as is the soft-spoken songbird
to the unwary worm's. I refer, of course, to
the matchmaker — an affliction against which
there is no law, no protection, and no remedy.
She — I think the species boasts no male —
resents the unmarried man as if he were a
personal insult. From the moment when he
crosses her path he is marked for the slaugh-
ter, and she begins to shuffle her kinsfolk and
acquaintances as one shuffles the cards in the
intellectual game of Old Maid, desperately
[9]

Far From The Maddening Girls

endeavouring to find him a mate. She cannot,
as the phrase aptly puts it, leave him " alone."

In my own case, I protest there had been
more matchmakers concerned than Briareus
could have counted upon his fingers, and I
was barely out of my 'teens when I learned to
appreciate the force of the saying that eternal
vigilance is the price of liberty. And if this
had been so when I was practically penniless,
what had I not to fear now that I had a com-
petency .''

A surprising number of natural pheno-
mena are enlisted in the matchmaker's ser-
vice. Moonlight, flowers, darkness, the woods,
the sea, spring, music, poetry — all these, and
many others, are her aids and accomplices.
Her house is full of cushioned corners, and
it is surrounded by piazzas, with vines and
hammocks and I know not what other snares;
and invariably there are girls visiting her with
whom one is left alone at frequent intervals in
the most surprising and disconcerting man-
[10]

Far From The Maddening Girls

ner. Pitfalls are as thick as bones in a shad.
You wouldn't suspect a mandolin of designs
upon your celibacy, would you ? — or a philo-
pena, or a piece of embroidery, or a fan, or a
box of candies ? Poor innocent! Put a girl be-
hind it, and a matchmaker standing close-
hauled in the offing, and each and every one
of them has an awful, a fatal significance.
There are strings to the mandolin: wretched
man, there will soon be one to you. What is
the philopena but a symbol of matrimony?
The girl never pays. And the embroidery:
look how the poor thing is stretched and
pulled and held in absolute bondage — with a
ring! And the fan is shut up twenty times of
an evening, and seen through the rest of the
time. And the box of candies disagrees with
you. So there ! There is something that sug-
gests a wife or a husband in every one of them.
And when a man begins to dally with them,
the first thing he knows the charm has worked,
and he has popped, and been gobbled up, for
[11]

Far From The Maddening Girls

all the world like an overheated kernel of
corn! His only safety, I repeat, is to escape
visiting the matchmakers by building a house
of his own, in which, perceptibly, there is no
room for a wife. It is an expression of convic-
tion, this, and shows him to be so firm in his
resolution that there is small hope of dislodg-
ing him.

The admirable conduct of Uncle Ezra,
then, made it possible for me thus to entrench
myself in a dwelling, the atmosphere of which
I proposed should resemble that of the Gar-
den of Eden before the appearance of Eve;
and, to this intent, I perceived that it must be
one in which it would be manifestly impos-
sible for a married couple to exist in anything
akin to comfort. In this way only could I ex-
pect to make it plain that I was not in the
matrimonial market, or likely ever to be.

Now there are two things about a house
which are as necessary to a woman as light
or air. One is commodious closet-room and
[12]

Far From The Maddening Girls

the other is a bath-tub. A man can stow his
apparel in the veriest cupboard, and a shower-
bath will give him more solid satisfaction than
all the tubs in Christendom; but a woman
must have as many hooks as Argus had eyes,
and as for a shower-bath, there is nothing in
the world over which she makes a greater
to-do than wetting her hair. I determined, as
the initial specification of my house, that
there should not be a place to hang so much
as a single skirt, and that the bathing arrange-
ments should be limited to a shower and a
slatted floor. A woman would think twice, I
reasoned, before setting her cap at a man with
a domicile so curiously limited.

It may appear to have been an extravagant
precaution, and I m^ght be asked why I could
not rely upon the strength of my resolution;
but, where matrimony is the peril to be avoid-
ed, there is no such thing as a superfluous
safeguard. The most cautious of us have our
moments of carelessness or abstraction, and,
[13]

Far From The Maddening Girls

more than once, one of the afore-described
combinations of a maiden, moonlight, and
midsummer madness, had affected me with a
horrid dizziness, a feeling, too distressing for
utterance, that I was upon the point of pro-
posing. It is a kind of emotional vertigo, this,
a rush of romance to the head, and, once ex-
perienced, the very thought of its possible re-
currence is indescribably alarming. I was
like a man who has been threatened with
smallpox : I felt that I could not get my fill of
vaccination. The only adequate measure was
to make myself as ineligible as possible; and
I knew that I had taken a long stride in this
direction when I eliminated the bath-tub.

Behold me, then, fairly launched upon my
plans. I drew them with the utmost care, up-
on a fair sheet of paper, and, on a morning
to be marked with a white stone, proceeded
with my design in my pocket to the office of
an architect of my acquaintance.

One of the most surprising things about an
[14]

Far From The Maddening Girls

architect is the number of houses upon which
he is engaged. I had always looked upon
houses as something which one would be apt
to build one at a time, like a cup challenger
or a soldier's monument, and, in consequence
of this impression, I was prepared to find the
architect in question highly gratified at the
receipt of my order. It certainly never oc-
curred to me, considering the number of ar-
chitects, that there were enough houses to go
round; but I found him already committed to
no less than nine, of which an amazing number
of young men in shirt-sleeves were drawing the
details in white ink on sheets of blue paper.

Arbuthnot — such was his name — was in-
clined to be sniffy, as he looked over my plan.
It was extraordinary, after all my thought,
what a lot of things I had done wrong, I only
remember one, at the moment, but that was
serious. There was no visible means of getting
into the kitchen from the exterior of the house,
so that, as Arbuthnot slightingly remarked,
[15]

Far From The Maddening Girls

it would be necessary to build the cook into
tlie dwelling, and admit the butcher and the
baker by way of the chimney. It occurred to
me that the problem of keeping a cook in the
country would thus be very happily solved,
but I contented myself with asking him to
correct my errors, and let me have the plans
at the earliest possible moment. The earliest
possible moment, it appeared, was two weeks
distant.

I was exceedingly annoyed at this, for I
wanted the plans immediately, as one always
wants what one is only recently able to afford,
but my exasperation was as nothing com-
pared with my dismay at Arbuthnot's next
remark.

" Where is the house to be .'' "

Will it be believed that this question had
never entered my mind ? It had been a veri-
table chhteau en Espagne, a castle in the air.
I stared at him blankly, and had not a word
to say.

016]

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As being immaterial to the present simple
narrative, I will not dwell upon the perplexity
incidental to the problem thus presented,
further than to say that the ensuing fortnight
was spent in a desperate search for a suitable
location. At one time it seemed more than
probable that the house would be entirely
completed before I should have found a place
to put it; and I fancy there could be nothing
more embarrassing than to have an adult,
able-bodied house on one's hands, without so
much as a, square foot of terra firma where-
upon to place it. One might as well live in a
balloon.

But, finally, the proper situation was dis-
covered, and after the title had been searched
— whether for smuggled goods or concealed
weapons I have not the most remote idea — I
found myself in a position to become pro-
prietor of three acres of land, of which, to my
thinking, the most dazzling attraction was the
fact that the nearest neighbour was a mile
[17]

Far From The Maddening Girls

away. However, I may make a note, in pass-
ing, of a paradox which I was very shortly to
discover. It is this. A mile is the most elastic
measurement in existence. If the person at
the other end of it is one whom you dislike,
it is no more protection against his company
than if it were a hundred-yard dash ; if, on the
contrary, you like him, and wish to see him at
frequent intervals, that mile which separates
you from him might as well be the diameter
of the earth. It is only the most disagreeable
persons who are always within reach.

My first glimpse of the land which was now
at my disposal was on one of those April days
which summer seems to send out in the man-
ner of tradesmen's samples — "If you like this
style of weather, we are now prepared to sup-
ply it in any quantity," etc. I did like the
style enormously. As I passed up the quiet
country road to which I had been directed by
the agent, I observed with pleasurable emo-
tion that everything in sight was touched with
[18]

Far From The Maddening Girls

fresh green, and that the air was full of the
twitter of birds. Spring in the country, I said
to myself, is a very different thing from spring
in the city. It is the trees that leave, instead
of the people; the birds' eggs that are laid,
instead of the evil-smelling asphalt pave-
ments; and the lawn-sprinklers that play, in-
stead of the hand-organs. I felt that I had
made a wise decision, as I turned a corner and
came in sight of what I was sure was the land
I contemplated buying. It formed a slight
rise from the level of the road — and at the
summit of the rise was perched a rock — and
on the summit of the rock was perched — a girl !
I felt precisely as if I had found a fly in the
cream-jug. If there is a place of all places
where a fly's presence is bound to be unap-
preciated, it is in the cream ; and if there was
a place of all places where a girl's was inap-
propriate, it was in the geometrical centre of
the three acres upon which I purposed to
build "Sans Souci." I had already chosen
[19]

Far From The Maddening Girls

this as the name of my prospective temple
to celibacy. "Sans Souci" — Without Dis-
quiet! It seemed to me to express admirably
the spirit of existence without hairpins and
without " in-laws."

The girl and I surveyed each other for an
instant in silence. She was one of those girls
who prove, if they prove anything, that clothes
do not make the man. With the sole excep-
tion of her shortish walking-skirt, there was
no visible article of her apparel which had
not been plagiarised from something dis-
tinctly masculine. She wore a broad-brimmed
felt hat, and a stock, and a man's belt, and a
Norfolk jacket, and dogskin walking-gloves
turned back at the wrists, and heavy shoes
with the soles protruding all around like little
piazzas. She was what sensible people call
bold -looking, and poets call debonair; and,
altogether, she was a type to which I had a
violent objection. At that first glimpse of her
I thought she was one of the best reasons for
[20]

Far From The Maddening Girls

not getting married which had ever come
under my attention. I bowed stiffly, and in-
quired where I could find Mr. Berrith's
property.

"You can find some of it on top of this
rock," she retorted. "I'm his daughter."

I explained with dignity that the particu-
lar property to which I referred consisted of
three acres which were for sale for building
purposes, and, in reply, she indicated her im-
mediate surroundings with a little wave of her
hand.

" Father was to have been here to show you
the place," she said, "but he was unexpect-
edly detained in town. I'm Miss Berrith. I
came over in his stead to save you the annoy-
ance of walking a mile to the house."

"Thank you," I answered, smothering my
desire to say that, in respect to annoyance, a
miss is as bad as a mile.

There was something in her presence which
robbed the occasion of half the pleasure I had
[21]

Far From The Maddening Girls

expected to derive therefrom. I had been
looking forward to rambling about at will,
and ruminating upon the improvements I
would make, and the probable aspect of the
completed house. I had not even looked for
Mr. Berrith's company. And now — a girl was
added, my solitude divided, my perplexity
multiplied, and my enjoyment subtracted, in
this, my first problem in Berrithmetic. It was
only natural, perhaps, that my next remark
should have verged upon the idiotic.

"I am a single man. Miss Berrith."

" I assure you, I didn't take you for twins,"
she replied with what I thought most uncalled
for levity. "You needn't explain, Mr. Sands;
we've heard all about you from the agent.
You seem to have been very frank with him."

I had. I realized it with a qualm of un-
easiness, and found myself wondering how
much of my conversation the imbecile had
seen fit to repeat.

"You are a confirmed bachelor?" con-
[22]

Far From The Maddening Girls

tinued Miss Berrith. " Don't be alarmed. It's
a complaint which can be remedied."

"It's not a complaint at all!" I exclaimed
indignantly. "It's a heartfelt thanksgiving.
So this is the land ?"

" From the big fir tree on the left," she ex-
plained, " to the clump of white birches on the
right, and as far back as the little stream."

It was a delicious prospect, wholly uncul-
tivated, and instinct with charming possi-
bilities. In my delight I permitted myself a
most injudicious burst of enthusiasm.

"Here is where I can raise the house!" I
cried, pointing to the knoll.

"Here," she said gravely, "is where you
certainly can't raise anything else. It's all
ledge."

I made the fatal mistake of attempting to
be facetious.

"How about self-raising flowers?"

Fatal, I say, because she promptly adopted
my weak-kneed little joke, gave it a pat on
[23]

Far From The Maddening Girls

the back to stiffen its limpness, washed its
face, tidied its hair, retied its cravat, brushed
its boots, and, in general, furbished it up into
something really worth while. This is what it
was at the end of the operation :

"You can only raise flowers with an ex-
posure to the west, just as you can only raise
flour with an exposure to the yeast. So you
see it is principally a question of what kind of
house you propose to build, in what position
you intend to build it, and how much land it is
designed to cover."

Here I made another error, more fatal
than the last. The subject so interested and
absorbed me that at the slightest reference to
my house I gave forth confidences as freely
as a sugar-maple gives forth sap. The young
person on the rock having, as I may say, thus
driven in the spigot, I bled views on single
blessedness unreservedly, confiding in her as
I had confided in Uncle Ezra's solicitor, in my
architect, in the real estate agent — as I am
[24]

Far From The Maddening Girls

confiding, gentle and tactful reader, in you!
I said to her all that is hereinbefore set down,
and, further, with broad and comprehensive
sweeps of my walking-stick, I sketched " Sans
Souci" for her, as I proposed to place it, upon
the swell of ground. Meanwhile, I forgot that
I was talking to a girl.

"And so," I concluded, "I shall be as safe
in the midst of these charming woods as ever
was Professor Garnier in his cage in the
African jungle. I shall not even be forced, as
he was, to listen to the daily chatter of inferior
beings, and I can defy the most enterprising
of man-eating spinsters to lay her claws upon
me!"

As I paused I felt that, perhaps, I had been
too emphatic. A woman always takes general
theories as immediately applicable to herself.
Hers has none of that broad, liberal view of
the abstract which distinguishes the masculine
mind. I was not wrong. Miss Berrith's reply
bordered on the contemptuous.
[25]

Far From The Maddening Girls

"Then there is no chance at all for me ?"

"My dear young lady!" I said generously,
" present company, you know — "

" Is always accepted ? Thank you. How
unfortunate for me that present company does
not always propose!"

"With me," I said, "all this is a matter of
principle."

"Your principal," she answered, "is likely
to draw liberal interest from those to whom
you confide it. Society, hereabouts, has not
much in the way of diversion. We shall all, I
am sure, watch with curiosity the progress of
your experiment. Already, I find myself ad-
vantageously enlightened. I've always heard
a wife referred to as the better half."

"Please remember," said I, "that we have
not been talking of a married man's better
half, but of a bachelor's better quarters."

"True," said Miss Berrith, dryly. "What
a future is yours ! It reminds me of what Ten-
nyson says: 'Ah, what shall I be at fifty
[26]

Far From The Maddening Girls

should Nature keep me alive, if I find the
world so bitter when I am but twenty-five?'"

" Irrelevant," I retorted. " We were speak-
ing of the change I propose to make."

"Precisely," remarked Miss Berrith. "What
is change if not halves and quarters and fifties
and twenty-fives?"

Once more I felt that she had the best of
me, and I was correspondingly relieved when
she took her departure, promising to acquaint
her father with my desire to meet him at the
agent's on the following day to conclude our
bargain. I was gratified to note that, five min-
utes later, I preserved no recollection of her
face beyond the fact that she had good teeth
and freckles on her nose.

Sometimes, in the course of an uncom-
monly good dinner, you may have added to
your enjoyment of its delicacies by an en-
deavour to realize how differently you would
feel as a pauper, munching on a crust. It was
in somewhat the same spirit that I seated my-
[27]

Far From The Maddening Girls

self upon the rock which she had left, looked
about at the land upon which "Sans Souci"
was soon to stand, and strove to appreciate
what would have been my sensations had I
been doomed to share it with a wife.

Primarily, as a bachelor, I was able to in-
dulge in many little luxuries which would
have been manifestly impossible if I had been
under the necessity of supplying some one
with pin-money; and I felt that these I should
enjoy the more for thinking to what uses mar-
ried men are compelled to apply their cost.
Never, I thought, would I use my telephone,
for example, without a sense of exultation in
the knowledge that its annual rental only ap-
proximated the cost of an Easter bonnet.

A wife! I saw myself paying for Parisian
dresses, loaded with flounces, and gores, and
chifl^on, and selvages, and passementerie —
whatever that maybe! — and such-like frip-
pery. I saw myself listening to curtain-lec-
tures. In accuracy's name, why "curtain"?
[28]

Far From The Maddening Girls

— since they are opened instead of closed just
as you want to go to sleep. I saw myself wear-
ing the ties of marriage — those unspeakable
ties which women buy at bargain-sales! In
short, I saw myself a slave, shuddered, and
shook myself into the magnificent realization
that it wasn't true !

Oh, "Sans Souci!" No hairpins, no curl-
papers, no piano practice, no hysterics, no
jealousies, tantrums, amateur cooking, threats
(always unmercifully unfulfilled) of Going
Back to Mother! No tea-parties, no sewing-
machines, no tears, sick headaches, cheap
novels, smelling salts! No misapplication of
the nail-scissors to the sharpening of pencils,
no undue expenditure of money which I could
not spare for Christmas presents which I did
not want! Oh, "Sans Souci!" — emblem of
prosperity, peace, and placidity — a change for
the better, and let who would make the awful
other change, for better for worse. Oh, " Sans
Souci!"— "Sans Souci!"— "Sans Souci!"
[29]

Far From The Maddening Girls

My little rhapsody over, I prepared to leave
my imminent domain. As I rose from my
seat upon the rock, something small and white
at my feet attracted my attention, and I
picked it up. It was a handkerchief — the
most preposterously inadequate handkerchief
I had ever seen, or hoped not to see. For a
postage-stamp, or even a baggage tag, its pro-
portions might not have been absurd. As a
handkerchief, it was a distinct farce, folly, and
fiasco. In the corner of this ridiculous article,
elaborately embroidered, was one word —
"Susie."

As a matter of curiosity, I would like to
know whether there is authentic record of a
single instance in which a man has left his
handkerchief on top of a rock, a mile from the
nearest neighbour.

[30]

CHAPTER TWO

In the course of the following fortnight I re-
ceived, with what emotions I shall not at-
tempt to say, the plan for my bungalow. At
that moment it was precisely as if the house
was in actual existence. I think the feeling
was not unnatural. Of course, a plan is no
more a house than a heifer is a tub of butter;
but in either case the mere fact that you have
acquired the former perceptibly increases
your chance of one day getting the latter.

My plan, like those I had already seen in
Arbuthnot's office, was executed in white ink
on blue paper, with its name and dimensions
neatly lettered in the centre of each room, the
doors all invitingly ajar, and the beds indicat-
ed by little devices which looked like the first
stage of cat's cradle. The chimneys were
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Far From The Maddening Girls

cunningly inserted in red, which subtlety lent
a singular air of reality to the whole. It was
nothing short of sublime !

You may smile, and I have no doubt you
do, at my enthusiasm. You may say (what is
undeniable) that its cause was nothing more
than a sheet of blue paper, upon which a
young man in shirt-sleeves, personally un-
known to me, had exercised his craft with a
ruling-pen. You will be quite right; but I
shall retort that a plan's a plan for a' that,
and that if you have never had the pleasure of
gloating over one of your own you are as
much to be pitied as the boy who has never
filched a watermelon.

Arbuthnot had asked for the prompt re-
turn of the plan, with my indorsement, but I
kept it by me for a full week before I could
bring myself to part with it; and when I re-
alized that the delay was becoming ridiculous,
and that I should presently have to let it go,
I was in what I conceive to be a father's state
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of mind when the day comes for his boy to re-
turn to boarding-school. I made, as well as
I was able, a tracing of it — which was equiv-
alent to having the aforesaid boy's tintype
taken — and trimmed it, where the edges were
frayed with much fondling, and pressed out
the wrinkles — which corresponded to a hair-
cut and a new suit of clothes. It was too large
to kiss, so I contented myself with patting it
on the back, and we went round to Arbuth-
not's together. When I left the plan in his
hands once more I think I was upon the point
of asking him to be particular that it did not
change its winter flannels too soon. At all
events, I know my attitude was distinctly
paternal.

They broke ground for "Sans Souci" on
the first of May. The morning newspaper
remarked, I remember, that another moving
day had come, and, in looking back that even-
ing upon this observation, it impressed me as
having been peculiarly appropriate. It was,
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by all odds, the most moving day in my ex-
perience. I went down from town, of course,
to see the work begun, and at the first fall of
the pick such a thrill ran through me as I am
sure must have coursed through the system
of De Lesseps when the initial spadeful of
earth was stirred on the Isthmus of Panama.
I looked, almost with affection, upon the
sturdy labourer who was responsible for this
first pick-nick in the vicinity of my future
home, and, when I had an opportunity, ad-
dressed him in a friendly manner.

"Fine day, my man."

He looked at me with the peculiar vacuity
observable in the eye of a dried mackerel, and
answered :

" Non capisco."

The conversation had been neither pro-
longed nor, in any sense, spirited, but it was,
nevertheless, at an end, for his remark not
only acquainted me with his inability to
comprehend the English language, but it
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happened to be the extent of my knowledge of
Italian. It was evident that there were not
enough words to go round, to say nothing of a
second helping.

The work went forward famously. Only a
week later the cellar walls were standing, and
I was able to step inside and look out of a
window. The entire aspect of the world under-
goes some subtle, psychological transforma-
tion from the moment when first you survey
it out of your own window. You are no longer
a supernumerary in the second row of the
Soldiers' Chorus, but the occupant of a grand
tier box, and of station somewhat more ex-
alted than that of Faust himself. I could
fancy with what contentment, with what
calm philosophy, I would look through that
window, after the trim, green blinds, and the
glass, and the dimity curtains should be in
place; and said as much to the head-mason.
He reminded me, with unnecessary particu-
larity, that I would not be apt to spend much
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Far From The Maddening Girls

of my time at a cellar window, especially as
the one in question was designed to light the
coal-bin; but I felt that the moral held good,
even when applied to another story.

Then the carpenters came, and sawed, and
conquered.

I soon perceived that the construction of
"Sans Souci" was to be an experience in pro-
gressive emotion. I had already looked out
of my own window: now I was able to walk
up my own cellar stairs and watch the car-
penters laying the floor. This part of the work
was accomplished with the most amazing
celerity, and, as I saw the progress made from
day to day, I could almost believe that the
obliging brownies had returned to earth, and
were helping things along in the middle of the
night. In reality, three weeks elapsed before
the framework was boarded in ; but the time
seemed shorter because so many things were
happening at once. Carpenters were swarm-
ing all over the house, inside and out, like
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flies on a cantaloupe rind; and the sound of
their hammers, heard from a distance as I
approached, suggested that Senorita GoUath
was engaged in doing a castanet dance. The
rooms were partitioned off by timbers, in
readiness for lathing. Gradually the roof
spread over me the protection of shingle bless-
edness. It was a scene of magnificent industry
and diligence, upon which I was content to
gaze for hours, as if I had been one entranced.
There was but one small cloud upon the fir-
mament of my satisfaction.

Although she lived a mile away, I soon
found that Miss Susie Berrith was as prone to
running over as a drinking-trough. She was
constantly on the scene, leaning against a red
cedar which stood near to the piazza, and
observing operations with an attentive eye.
No doubt she was a very nice girl in her way,
but she was also in mine, and I resented it.
After all, a promising house is not a perfor-
imng bear. I am afraid I was not overcordial
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on these occasions; indeed, I was more than
apt to sniff. But she had an innocent way
of turning up her eyes which, in a manner,
disarmed me. For I have noticed that when
a man turns up his nose at a woman, and a
woman turns up her eyes at a man — well, it
is like a vote to increase the pension list : the
eyes have it, every time! So I came to tole-
rate her presence, and even to engage her
in polite, if somewhat uneasy, conversation.

"I wonder," I said on one occasion,
"whether you have any conception of what
all this means to me. Think of it! From now
on I shall have everything my own way!"

"And you think you will enjoy that.^^"
asked Miss Berrith.

" Why not ?" I demanded.

"Why not, indeed.!^" she assented. "But
has it never occurred to you that there is
really more pleasure in having things another
person's way?"

It never had occurred to me, and I said so
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quite frankly, but without adding what I
thought — that it was by all odds the silliest
theory I had ever heard in my life.

"The mere fact that tastes differ," said I,
" seems to me to prove the contrary. Just by
way of example, and with all the respect in
the world for your taste, which I have no
doubt is most excellent, I don't suppose that
you will endeavour to persuade me that I
should actually prefer a wall-paper, or an or-
nament, of your choosing to one of my own."

"No," said Miss Berrith,with the oddest lit-
tle smile imaginable, "that isn't what I meant."

" It is what you said," I protested, some-
what peevishly.

She made no reply — which, of course,
showed I had the best of it.

I am bound, however, to confess that, to a
certain extent, I was afraid of her. There is
something about a girl — even about a girl in
whom one has no particular interest — which
is profoundly disconcerting. If you have ever
[39]

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passed much time in the company of an An-
gora cat you have probably experienced much
the same sensations which are wont to affect
me in the society of a girl. There is the same
impenetrable calm, the same simultaneous
purring and sharpening of claws, the same
abrupt transition from an attitude of the ut-
most friendliness to one of the most humilia-
ting disdain. I beg to be understood as speak-
ing exclusively in metaphor when I say that
both jump into my lap when I don't want
them, and persist in jumping down when I
do. Above all, with neither do I feel wholly
assured as to what is going to happen next.

No conversation can be entirely free from
embarrassment in which you are uncertain of
your companion's point of view. As regards
Miss Berrith, I found that I was constantly
making remarks which appeared to me to be
as clear as a mirror when they left my lips.
A breath from her, and — well, you know the
effect of a breath upon a mirror. I was for-
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ever falling back upon some rag of an apology
with which to make things clear.

But her silence at this moment rather im-
pelled me to pity her. When one admiral
sinks another's flagship, he immediately or-
ders his boats lowered away to pick up the
survivors, and I have a very similar method
of procedure as toward those whom I have
worsted in an argument. So now I kindly
came back to the original topic.

"The common, or garden, hen," I said,
"which lays in a soap-box filled with straw,
of the farmer's providing, is surely a creature
less enviable than the oriole, which constructs
its own nest with infinite taste and ingenuity.
And so I contend that the man who builds his
own house according to his own ideas is more
admirable than the man who simply accepts
another's ideas of what a house ought to be.
I am building my bungalow around me, as it
were, and it is going to fit me to a nicety. To
employ a metaphor, I shall be in no fear of
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Far From The Maddening Girls

dashing out my brains on the Hntels because
a five-foot man has seen fit to make the door-
ways five feet one."

"Are there no tucks or hems in your
house?" asked Miss Berrith.

I looked at her inquiringly.

" Nothing to let out," she explained, " in
case — in case you should happen to grow, Mr.
Sands?"

"I am building my bungalow to live in,
not to let out," I replied, with some humour,
I fancy. "And I shall be thirty on my next
birthday, Miss Berrith. Do you think there is
much chance of my growing ?"

"Let us hope for the best," she answered
quietly.

Now that is what I mean by blowing on
the mirror.

It was when the plasterers came upon the

scene that the interior of my bungalow began

to assume a certain dignity. A plasterer, it

appears, is nothing more than a mason in

[42]

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white overalls. They slathered. The word
is not elegant, but there is no other which
fitly describes their operations. What had
been lath was lather. The whole house looked
as if it was about to be shaved.

This was the most tantalizing stage of the
proceedings. Plaster is a substance which has
adopted as its motto "Never say dry!" and
day after day went by, on each of which it
seemed only to grow softer. Arbuthnot had
said that what was wanted was hot, dry air;
but the weather had changed, and we had
rains as long as Queen Victoria's, with never
a chance for the air apparent.

Nevertheless, little by little the house was
approaching completion. The window-frames
were in, the hardwood floors were down, and
there were doors to open and shut. The paint-
er was at work, as well: a charming person,
who whistled as he worked, quoted Whittier
to me, and produced the most astounding
effects, the most pleasing transformations, in
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the aspect of everything upon which he laid
his brush. I have travelled not inconsiderably :
I have seen much: I have experienced many
emotions: but I contend, and shall always
contend, that the thing that contributes most
largely to human comfort and to human self-
respect is fresh paint. It is soul-satisfying. It
is eminently respectable. It remedies past
errors: it challenges future indiscretions. It
is the hall-mark of cleanliness, the guarantee
of gentility, the stamp of self-l"espect.

In course of time the plaster dried, and, in
a high state of exhilaration, I went to choose
my wall-papers. I give you my word that
never before had I so much as imagined that
so many varieties of wall-paper existed. I de-
spaired, at first, of making a choice. They all
seemed born to be hung, and I found myself
in a kind of embarrassment as to which was.
The one which appealed to me most strongly
was a daring arrangement of scarlet poppies
on a yellow background. But then, poppies
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are such sleepy, dead-and-alive things, to have
about one. You might as well surround your-
self with mummies as with poppies. So I re-
jected this design, and, in the end, came down
to plain, cool colours. For this inspiration I
was indebted to one of those freaks of memory
whereby a trivial incident pops out of the past
like a cork from a soda-bottle — when you're
not looking. A gaudy scheme of large, and
what I should call floppy, roses against a
green trellis suddenly caused me to remember
the mumps. There had been roses on the wall
opposite my infantile pallet — thirty- two roses
across and seventeen roses up and down —
and when you squinted your eyes, every sec-
ond rose had the face of an old lady in a tur-
ban and a tippet. The mumps is a tedious
disease and aggravated, rather than in the
least degree ameliorated, by a continuous pro-
cess of counting seventeen up and down and
thirty-two across. As Mr. Swinburne says,
"/ shall never he friends again with roses."
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But, what was more to the point, I also re-
membered that I had been thus direfuUy af-
flicted on one side only. I reflected that some-
where that other mump might be lurking in
ambush, awaiting its chance to spring at my
throat. And should I, then, fall once more to
computing the insensate figures on a bedroom
wall ? A thousand times no ! Solid colours,
or nothing, for me !

So I made my bedroom a cool blue, my den
a tranquil green, my library a rich yellow, and
my dining-room a glowing red. It was a rain-
bow on the instalment plan. Only in my
guest-room did I permit myself a deviation
from the severity of my scheme. There was
no such thing as resisting a certain design in
pansies, and I determined that such of my
guests as might be so ill-advised as to come
down with the mumps over-night would do
so entirely at their own risk, and must pay the
penalty of their indiscretion.

If the painter had produced transforma-
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Far From The Maddening Girls

tions in the aspect of the bungalow's interior,
what shall be said of the paper-hanger ? I had
always had a shamefaced and unconfessed
admiration for a dressmaker who could make
stripes come together correctly down a seam ;
but after I had seen that master of precision
fitting the two halves of a pansy together down
ten feet of wall space, so that you couldn't for
the life of you tell where the " pan " ended and
the " sy " began, I perceived that the other was
only a weak imitation of this superior being.
Have you ever tried to paste on a flat surface
a piece of paper the size of this page ? If you
have, you will not need to be told that, short
of putting up a stovepipe, it is the most mad-
dening feat attempted by civilized man. You
will remember how it curls up and sticks to
the other side of itself : how you get it off one
finger only to have it cling to another: how,
when you spread it out flat, at last, the air
bubbles get under it, as if they heard a bur-
glar in the house, and pull the blankets over
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their heads, and refuse to come out or be
interviewed on any terms whatever. And you
will agree with me, I think, when I submit
that the eighth wonder of the world is a man
who can take two sheets of limp, wet paper,
eighteen inches wide by ten feet long, and
paste them side by side and edge to edge with
such astounding ingenuity that you can have
no more hope of perceiving the line of division
at a distance of five feet than of discovering
the boundary between New York and New
Jersey by paddling about in the middle of the
Hudson River.

In this philosophical attitude of mind, then,
I emerged at length from the maelstrom of
plastering, carpentry, painting and paper-
hanging, and found myself in a position to
furnish. As I look back upon this stage it
seems to me to have been characterized by a
vast superfluity of what Mr. Longfellow very
truthfully called "the strange device, excel-
sior." Excelsior is to shavings what spaghetti
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is to macaroni — smaller, that is, and infinitely
more difficult to manipulate. As everything
breakable came down from town packed in
it, life became a mere struggle to keep it from
going up my sleeves and down my neck, and
I grew to fear and hate it, to tremble at sight of
it, to flee from it when possible, as if it were
a pest. I am convinced that hope was the
only thing in Pandora's box — but the hope
was packed in excelsior.

Before now I had an offset to Miss Berrith
in the person of Mrs. Sarah Galvin, a widow
on the perfectly safe side of fifty, who was to
serve me thenceforward in the combined ca-
pacities of housekeeper, cook, and Sally-de-
chambre. She had already taken up her abode
in my bungalow, where she was existing, in
some precarious fashion of her own, on tea
and chronic melancholy until such time as
things should be in running order. She was
the sort of woman you would not know a sec-
ond time if you met her in a pint-pot. She had
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Far From The Maddening Girls

no perceptible features. Her face took no
more hold upon one's attention or memory
than a Chinaman's. I do not remember ever
to have looked at her squarely, and I was al-
ways curiously surprised when the fact was
brought to my attention that such a person
existed at all. She was like the new moon:
whenever she made her appearance it seemed
to me that I had last seen her at least three
years back. When, by chance, I encountered
her in the house, she melted through a door-
way like an alarmed crab in soft sand. She
was a woman after my own heart — needless
to say, with no chance of getting it — and,
in brief, the person of all persons for "Sans
Souci."

It was with something very nearly akin to
triumph that I directed Miss Berrith's atten-
tion to her. Miss Berrith "happened to be
passing " — that was her euphonious way of ex-
plaining her almost daily fit of curiosity — and
stopped a moment to watch me unpacking
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china on the front piazza. I had been handing
plates to Galvin over my left shoulder, and
my first intimation of my young neighbour's
presence came in the form of what I may de-
scribe as the evaporation of my faithful at-
tendant into thin air.

"Excuse me," I said, looking up. "I did
not see you." I was covered from top to toe
with the ubiquitous excelsior, warm, tired,
and rather cross.

"You will end by marrying your cook,"
observed Miss Berrith with extreme irrele-
vancy.

"Nothing of the sort!" I exclaimed indig-
nantly. "Whatever put that idea into your
head.?"

"I'm not sure," said she. "Just seeing you
working there together, all so comfy, I sup-
pose. Propinquity — association — kindred in-
terests — they accomplish wonders,you know."

"Did you get a good look at her.''" I de-
manded.

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Far From The Maddening Girls

"Fleeting," answered my tormentor, "but
fairly comprehensive."

"And you actually think there is a possibil-
ity of my marrying that."

Miss Berrith shrugged her shoulders.

"Who knows.''" she answered flippantly.
"There is nothing more illogical than the per-
sons other persons marry."

" I think I am quite safe, so far as Galvin is
concerned," I said haughtily, " and it is a mile
to another woman."

"Is it.''" asked Miss Berrith with a pre-
tense at innocence. " I should not have thought
the distance more than five yards."

I considered this to be the extreme of au-
dacity, and very properly ignored it.

"And in any event— a cook!" I protested.

She appeared to reflect. Little did I foresee
the bomb which she was preparing to ex-
plode at my devoted feet.

"Why," she asked slowly, "is a girl like a
cook?"

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Far From The Maddening Girls

" I can't imagine," says I.

"Because," said Miss Berrith, "she's a
ready maid before she's engaged and a maid
to order afterward."

"Aha!" I cried triumphantly, "you admit
the inferiority of the wife!"

"I haven't said whom she is made to
order," said Miss Berrith.

For a moment I felt as I do after trying to
recover a wet cake of soap before it reaches
the carpet.

"Of course," I ventured, "our ideas upon
marriage are bound to be very dissimilar. I
have the masculine point of view."

Miss Berrith looked at me curiously.

"A friend of my father," she observed
slowly, "once referred to the violet as a
' thundering pretty flower.' "

" I'm afraid that I don't see the connection,"
said I uneasily.

"Only," answered Miss Berrith, "that in
relation to at least one very sweet and tender
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Far From The Maddening Girls

and beautiful thing the mascuhne point of
view would seem to border upon the inade-
quate."

"I should be the last man in the world," I
exclaimed resentfully, "to call the violet 'a
thundering pretty flower.'"

"Oh, we all have our virtues," said Miss
Berrith airily. "The gentleman in question,
for instance, has been married thirty years."

If a ruler of Para rubber has ever been
applied to your knuckles you will recall the
effect produced as a particularity of sensa-
tion as distressing as it is abrupt. I had not
experienced it since I was a child.

A week later I assembled in a valise the re-
mainder of my belongings in town, squared
accounts with my landlady, cast one brief
unregretful look at the wicker furniture, the
dispirited curtains, and the lamentable plush
table-cover of my late apartment, and took
final flight for " Sans Souci."

What a night it was, to be sure, that first
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one under the shelter of my own roof-tree!
Galvin prepared me a delicious little dinner,
and afterwards I installed myself in my lar-
gest and most comfortable chair, with a
favourite book and a pipeful of mild to-
bacco.

For a time I read steadily. It was Mr. Kip-
ling's "Story of the Gadsbys," which ends
with that marvellous "Envoi," which I have
always thought the final words on the advan-
tages of celibacy :

One may fall but he falls by himself —
Falls by himself with himself to blame;

One may attain and to him is the pelf.
Loot of the city in Gold or Fame:

Plunder of earth shall be all his own

Who travels the fastest and travels alone.

I looked up and about my pleasant library,
and I think my eyes were a little moist as I
dwelt affectionately upon the memory of ex-
cellent Uncle Ezra and all he had thus made
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possible. I was a bachelor at last! Every-
thing had turned out exactly as I had planned
it. Celibacy lay upon that scene like a caress.
Suppose — suppose I had been married!

Married !

I spoke the word half-aloud, and somehow,
in these surroundings, it was as incongruous
as an icicle in June !

Married !

I put my feet upon the chair which faced
me — not that I approve this practice, but sim-
ply to show my independence. A married
man's chairs are like the man himself — made
only to be sat upon.

Married !

I re-lit my pipe. Should I have had to
smoke it out on the front steps had things
been otherwise ? Ah, there are worse matches
than the one I used!

Married I

I switched off all the incandescent bulbs-
reflecting that married men are even more
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frequently made light of and put out — and
sought the piazza.

The night was perfection, soft and still,
save for a tiny lisp of leaves, the high whine of
insects, and the distant murmur of the sea.
Out of the fullness of my content I spoke
aloud to the surrounding woodland :

"Hail, 'Sans Souci!'"

If there is one thing I abominate it is an
echo. It is so essentially feminine. It always
has to have the last word.

There was an echo in those woods, and
when I made the above innocent observation
of course it had to up and answer back. And
what, pray, was the form of remark, it saw fit
to make ? Nothing less than :

"Su-sie.'"

I felt that I was getting a little too much of
the Berrith girl.

[57]

CHAPTER THREE

With the express design of familiarizing my-
self with my new mode of life, I had no guests,
and went but once or twice to town, during
the first month of "Sans Souci." I wished to
get upon terms of intimacy with my rooms, to
tame my chairs, to have my wall-papers come
to me when I called them and feed out of my
hand. As it was, everything in the place
seemed to be standing at attention, prepared
to salute me when I should pass. All my cush-
ions behaved like debutantes : not one had
the easy air of repose which comes with a
second season or a third. The furniture, with-
out exception, was formal in manner, and al-
most disapproving. I could not even fall back
with confidence upon my bed, which as yet
received me with a certain discouraging rig-
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Far From The Maddening Girls

idity. I felt that each of the rooms was de-
liberately taking stock of me, and that from
no one of them was I by any means sure of a
favourable opinion.

Fortunately, this uncomfortable formality
passed off, like the appalling embarrassment
which characterizes the first half-hour of a
children's party, and before the month was
up my rooms had decided that I was not an
undesirable playmate ; had formed, as it were,
a circle around me, holding hands; and we
were all on the best possible terms with each
other and ourselves. But I think it was Gal-
vin, rather than I, who caused "Sans Souci"
to assume the reposeful appearance of an
establishment long maintained.

Her methods of operation were those of the
lowly but effectual mole; continuous and con-
scientious, that is to say, but invisible to the
naked eye in all save results. From a distance
I could hear her whirling through space, hot
on the heels of some unapparent speck of dust,
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and ere I had summoned the courage to open
my eyes of a morning, her broom was Hsping
along the base-board of my hall. I knew
when she was at the wash-tub, too, because,
when thus employed, she invariably raised her
voice in what I at first mistook for a dirge, but
mentally unmasked, at length, as "Bonnie
Dundee" in adagio time. If you have never
heard it thus rendered, a simple experiment
will enable you to bear me out in the asser-
tion that of all airs it is the most lamentable.
But never, up to that time, had I realized
how much cleaner than merely clean it is
possible for a window, or a floor, or a table-
cloth to be. Never had I known what it was
to have whatever I might chance to mislay
or disarrange restored to its proper position,
the instant my back was turned, as unerringly
and inevitably as those cheerful, weighted
dolls which spring upright, no matter how or
where you happen to hurl them. My some-
what meagre supply of silver was, fortunately,
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sterling, for assuredly no plate could ever
have survived the polishings it received; and
as for my feather dusters, they must have been
made from the plumage of Mother Carey's
chickens, so incessantly were they on the
wing. I said to myself, with vast satisfaction,
that Galvin was a paragon. When I discov-
ered — by degrees, as shall you — how many
sides she had, I perceived that "octagon"
was the word I should have used.

Thus far, I had experienced none of the
actual cares of housekeeping -^ nor, to be
frank, did I wish or expect to. I had no de-
sire, for example, to have a hand in the mar-
keting. I am as quick as another to take a
hint. It was not for nothing that I had read
innumerable paragraphs in the humourous
weeklies, having to do with the inexperienced
one who orders two yards of French chops or
a pound of eggs, and I had no mind to present
myself as a figure of fun to my grocer and
my butcher. Not for three weeks was I even
[61]

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consulted as to my preferences in the matter
of food, and I am frank to say I never fared
better. But this was the calm before the
storm. I had retired to my den, one morning,
determined to commence the novel which I
had long had in mind, and was scrupulously
pointing a half-dozen pencils, when I was in-
terrupted by the sound of some one knocking.
It was Galvin.

I should no more have suspected Galvin of
venturing to knock at a door than of pre-
suming to discharge a howitzer; but Galvin it
was, and, it required but a glance to show me,
a very different Galvin from that to which I
had become accustomed. She was the picture
of chastened resignation. Submission to un-
merited adversity shone meekly in her eyes.
The humility of the early martyrs was in the
droop of her lips.

"Well, Galvin?" said I.

At once the flood-gates of her speech were
opened.

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"If I make bold to disturb you, sir," she
said, in a tone wherein was not perceptible the
most remote trace of cheerfulness, or even
hope, " it is because I cannot — no one could —
you might ask an angel and they wouldn't —
not in houses where there are four and five in
help— much less only — and there are many
and many and many houses — and of course
when things are not properly done— not that
any one has ever said of me — I've a very sen-
sitive character, Mr. Sands — even my own
sister used to say — not that I want to boast —
but to feel that, hard as I may try — and when
I saw that you didn't eat — and the disap-
pointment—my life has not been an easy one
— I often feel as if — as if — I feel as if — "

At this point Galvin abruptly dissolved in
tears.

This whole matter, so unspeakably tragic
in seeming, consisted in the fact that I had
eaten so lightly of the meals which she pro-
vided that she felt I must disapprove of her
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selection. Protests were without avail. She
proposed to have me arrange a schedule of
my fare, whereby the burden of responsibility
should be shifted from her shoulders to mine.
This, to assuage her desperation, I agreed to
do, and having my pencils fortuitously point-
ed, forthwith set to work to map out meals for
a fortnight ahead. Thus to provide for forty-
two meals would seem to be simplicity itself,
said my mind to me.

First in order, I set down the meats:
roast beef, beefsteak . , chops . . . lamb
.... mutton —

As I live, I could think of no more !

I did better with the vegetables, which
mounted up to twelve; but that was not even
one a day for my fortnight, and, what was
worse, at least four out of the dozen were ex-
cessively distasteful to me.

I was most unfortunate of all in regard to
the desserts. I thought of pie — which, on one
occasion in early life, saluted my confiding
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indulgence with such unexampled harshness
that any sympathy between us has been out
of the question ever since— and of Charlotte
Russe, which, from its striking resemblance
to a shaving-mug in full blast, has never seem-
ed to me inviting — and of something called
Sally Lunn, upon which I did not care to ven-
ture, because I could not in the least remem-
ber what manner of thing it was. Then and
there I came to a full halt, and, by way of
finale to the first dinner on my schedule,
feebly wrote " Assorted Fruit." I may add at
once that I never succeeded in getting beyond
the second day's luncheon, and that Galvin,
duly reassured as to my appreciation, con-
tinued to do the ordering, after all. The sole
virtue of the episode was in showing me that
she had another side in addition to the vanish-
ing and the melodious. I was yet in blissful
ignorance of the remaining five which crop-
ped up later to complete my human octagon.
In justice to myself, however, I am bound to
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say that, after I had definitely abandoned
my attempt to make a schedule, I thought of
a considerable number of other meats, such as
Irish stew, and hash, and minced beef. But
there are fewer vegetables in the world than I
had supposed.

There was but one incident in connection
with the earlier stages of my bachelor house-
keeping which I found more humiliating to
my self-esteem than this. I have in mind my
visit, at the instance of Galvin, to the notion
counter of Messrs. Wimple, Gabardine &
Vale, who keep the largest department store in
town. Galvin handed me a list of her wants in
this particular, as I was leaving " Sans Souci"
that morning, and this I perused with interest
on my way up in the train. It ran as follows :

White spool cotton (80)

Black spool cotton (80)

Needles (8)

Tape (1 inch)

Shoe buttons (3)
[66]

WILL NOT DWELL UPON THAT MOST PAINFUL FIFTEEN
MINUTES AT THE NOTION COUNTER

Far From The Maddening Girls

That was all. Could anything have been
more simple in appearance ? Well, I solemn-
ly avow that the most intricate cryptogram
was the veriest child's play in comparison!

I will not dwell upon that most painful
fifteen minutes at the notion counter. (They
call it that because the girls behind it have
more notion than you of what you want.) I
knew what I wanted — though, to be sure, it
did not turn out to be what Galvin wanted —
and, after a brief but severe struggle, I ob-
tained it. It was a shocking experience.
Homer speaks of the "ever-laughing sea,"
but I am in a position to show that, in the mat-
ter of laughter, the sea is a poor performer be-
side the girl at the notion counter. It was all
very unjust, very unreasonable. How was I
to know that all these commodities are num-
bered and measured in direct opposition to
every law of logic ? — needles and spool cotton
by quality instead of quantity, tape by width
instead of length, buttons by cards instead
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of individuals ! SuflBce it to say that I return-
ed to "'Sans Souci" with one hundred and
sixty spools of cotton, eight needles of the
largest size, one inch of tape, and three shoe
buttons, and that I could not bring myself to
tolerate the presence of Galvin for a full week
thereafter.

The first full month of my new existence
had elapsed when I suddenly found myself
confronted with the necessity of engaging
Darius. He arrived as I was finishing break-
fast one morning, bearing a note from Miss
Berrith, the most expansive smile I have ever
seen, and the greatest number of freckles
which it was possible to accommodate within
the limited compass of his countenance. This
was Miss Berrith's note, which I read at the
front door, while he waited :

"Dear Mr. Sands:

" I do not know if you have any need of a boy
about the place, but, if you have, I hope you
will give one of my Sunday-school scholars,
[68]

P.N.

iH£ MOST EXPANSIVE SMILE 1 HAVE EVER SEEN

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Darius Doane, a trial. He is very willing and
anxious to please, and besides finding him
useful, you will have the satisfaction of know-
ing that you are enabling him to aid his
mother in supporting an invalid husband.
"Sincerely yours,

"Susie Berrith."

As I finished this epistle I was conscious of
a swishing sound, and looked up to find Dari-
us sweeping the piazza. To this day I cannot
imagine where he found the broom. He re-
plied to my questioning glance with what I
should have supposed an impossible enlarge-
ment of his former grin.

"I t'ought I might uz well git roight ter
woik," he observed, and forthwith I per-
ceived that there was no way out of it but to
give Darius Doane a trial. At the moment, I
had no suspicion of how many trials Darius
Doane was destined to give me.

How Darius did not perform his duties
there is not space to tell. His age was twelve,
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his height inconsiderable, and his principal
employments were polishing my boots, saun-
tering on errands, and endeavouring, with the
utmost assiduity, to ascertain the greatest
amount of sound and the least amount of
melody which it is possible to extract from a
mouth-organ at one and the self-same time.
The result of his activities on an open fire
would have done credit to a chemical engine.
The arabesques of soap upon a window which
he had "washed" would have put the artistic
labours of Jack Frost to shame. He was able
to drench himself more thoroughly by man-
ipulating a garden hose than the average per-
son could do by standing in front of the noz-
zle. He could lose more things in a given
space of time than Robert Houdin. He could
forget more messages, make more mistakes,
come later of a morning and take his depart-
ure earlier — but why multiply examples?
These were not the tenth part of his accom-
plishments.

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Twenty times in the course of the first week
1 essayed to discharge the boy, but on each
occasion he missed firing. He was so cheerful,
so beamingly unconscious of his own short-
comings, that it was impossible to get beyond
a certain point of severity. He reminded me
of a fox-terrier pup, once of my acquaintance,
who always imagined that an infuriated at-
tempt to get at him with a stick and beat him
to a pulp was part of some new game. After
a short detour he would come romping back
in an ecstasy, smiling and wagging his rudi-
ment of a tail, and the man who could have
found it in his heart to strike him thus I
should have suspected of being able to par-
boil a babe-in-arms without a qualm. So
with Darius. I felt that if ever, when mad-
dened by the mouth-organ, I could creep up-
on him from behind, I might discharge him.
But if he turned upon me, before the odious
deed was done, all smiles, all eagerness to
please, I knew that I was lost.
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It was not until Darius had been a fort-
night in my employ that I saw Miss Berrith
again. The occasion was a dinner — the first
at "Sans Souci." Arbuthnot came down
from town to spend the night, and I invited
Mr. Berrith and his daughter over to make
up a four. I particularly desired to show
Miss Berrith the manner in which I had
worked out the sublime conception of celi-
bate domesticity at which she had seen fit to
tilt her nose. I wished her to know that when
she had said "Then there is no chance for
me," it was one of the many true words
spoken in jest. I intended to have her under-
stand that, among all the rooms in my bung-
alow, there was no room for a wife. I was
prepared deliberately to direct her attention
to the absence of closet space and a bath-tub.
In short, I designed this dinner as a " house-
warning."

Mr. Berrith was the kind of man into
whom one can stick an infinite number of in-
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Far From The Maddening Girls

teresting remarks without securing any re-
turn whatever — as if one were filling a pin-
cushion, which you may have remarked is a
very one-sided operation. At an early stage of
the dinner I turned him over to Arbuthnot,
who, with a faculty which I do not possess,
immediately discovered him to be an enthu-
siast on military history, and set him chatter-
ing like a jackdaw. There are many people
who thus resemble one-half of a Seidlitz pow-
der. So long as you don't know what par-
ticular topic to mix with their intelligence, it
remains flat and lifeless; but once stir it up
with the proper ingredient and it promptly
begins to effervesce. The other half of the
Berrith powder was Napoleon, and as Ar-
buthnot is something of a Bonapartisan him-
self, the two of them got on famously — and
left Miss Berrith to me.

"And how do you manage to get along
with Darius.?" said she.

"I'm sure I can't imagine," I answered
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doubtfully. " He has many accomplishments,
but I am not sure that they are precisely
applicable to the situation. He is very expert
upon the mouth-organ."

"That is hardly in the line of your needs, I
suppose," said Miss Berrith gravely, "but I
am very glad you could give him the place.
It is always a satisfaction to feel that one is
helping another to earn a livelihood."

"His is the liveliesthood," said I, "that
ever a boy earned yet."

"Still, it is steady work," observed Miss
Berrith.

" If only you could see it!" I exclaimed.

"I mean," she answered, with a little
smile, "that he was only doing odd jobs be-
fore he came to you."

"He has been doing odder ones ever
since," said I. "But I must thank you for
thinking of me."

"That reminds me that I owe you an
apology," said Miss Berrith. "I met Galvin
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one day not long ago, as she was taking an
airing, and had a little chat with her. She —
she complained about your appetite, Mr.
Sands. She said you ate so little that she felt
you were not satisfied with what she provid-
ed, and so I asked her why she didn't get you
to do the ordering. Later, I was sorry that I
had interfered. After all, it was none of my
business, was it?"

"No," said I. (After all, it wasn't.)

"I am very sorry," said Miss Berrith,
quietly.

We were finishing the cheese course and I
was eating my last biscuit — one of the soda
kind that is so dry and hard to swallow. It
was that which made me choke a little.

"That was rude of me," I added pres-
ently, "but I didn't mean it to be. Of course
it was very nice of you to take an interest."

Then, on an impulse which I should have
found it hard to explain, I gave her the de-
tails of my misadventures with the bill-of-
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fare and at the notion counter. It was an-
other mark of feminine inconsistency that
she manifested no evidence of being amused.
Even I, victim of the untoward circumstances
as I was, could perceive in these episodes
elements distinctly humourous, but Miss
Berrith appeared to be less enlivened than
depressed by my recital. At the end, she look-
ed up at me in a curious manner which was
almost compassionate.

"I am very sorry," she said, again.

"Oh, it was nothing," I answered cheer-
fully. "They were only little things."

"But, in a man's home-life." said she,
" it is the little things that count — both ways."

Then Arbuthnot engaged her attention,
and, as Mr. Berrith was gobbling the remain-
der of his cheese and biscuit at a rate which
suggested coaling a ship at sea, I had a mo-
ment in which to reflect upon her words. It
was with considerable reluctance that I al-
lowed my candour to carry me to the point
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of acknowledging to myself that there were
drawbacks to life as I had planned it at " Sans
Souci." For one thing, the leisure which I
had contemplated as likely to prove its chief
advantage was not only less ample than I had
pictured it but was daily more curtailed.
And, as Miss Berrith had said, it was the
little things which were responsible.

"Yes," I agreed, as she turned to me
again, "it is the little things which count —
the grains of sand which make the mighty
land where the mighty least expected to. To
the making of a house there is no end. Some-
body seems to have been dropping stitches all
along, and I am constantly forced to go la-
bouriously back and pick them up."

" Can't Galvin attend to the little details ?"
asked Miss Berrith.

"Galvin," said I, "is a very competent
first mate, but you must know that there are
occasions when it is imperative that the cap-
tain should be on deck. Galvin, for example,
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could hardly be expected to issue instructions
to the carpenter."

"The carpenter?" repeated Miss Berrith.
"But I thought you were through with car-
penters long ago."

"I am convinced," I replied, "that just as
spirits are supposed to frequent the scenes
which were most familiar to them in life, so
the unhappy householder will find his prem-
ises haunted more or less regularly by the
masons, plumbers and painters who made
the dwelling what it is, and have to be con-
stantly recalled to make it what it ought to be.
When it rains, Miss Berrith, the water comes
down through my roof and up through my
cellar floor — thereby proving its ability to
flow in two directions at once. The water in
my bathroom escapes from the faucet which
is designed to keep it from flowing, and keeps
from flowing down the exhaust pipe which is
designed to let it escape. My doors have
warped. I can't shut those which I can open,
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and I can't open those which I can shut.
These, and many others of the kind, are
things which not only call for the services of
the mason, the plumber and the carpenter,
but for my personal supervision, as well."

"I see," said Miss Berrith. "All the petty
annoyances which a wife takes off her hus-
band's hands."

It was on the tip of my tongue to say that,
in all probability, the least petty annoyance
on a husband's hands would be the wife her-
self, but, somehow — I didn't. My principal
mistake in regard to Miss Berrith had lain in
attaching a hidden significance to everything
she said. I think we men are too apt to over-
estimate the subtlety of women. In the pres-
ent instance, her remark was undoubtedly
quite without mental reservation.

But, though I spoke jestingly of them,

these self-same little things were far from

contributing to my comfort. The name, too,

was legion of the things which I found I had

[79]

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to buy. On one occasion Galvin put in a plea
for a colander, and whether a colander was
animal, mineral or vegetable, animate or in-
animate, I had less idea than a babe unborn,
although it was manifestly impossible to con-
fess so much to Galvin. It was only by the
merest good fortune that I happened to ask
for it in the hardware department of Messrs.
Wimple, Gabardine & Vale, instead of at the
notion counter.

Again, Galvin was hemming napkins and
asked if I desired to have her "turn in the
selvage." A selvage.? A selvage.? I remem-
ber answering weakly :

"We are too hospitable, Galvin, to turn
out even a selvage."

This seemed to satisfy her, but I realized
that it was by sheer luck. Which reminds me
that I have never remembered from that hour
to consult the dictionary upon a selvage.

In fine, I was daily pestered with number-
less details which it was impossible to resent
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and still more impossible to avoid. I was
forced to make an acquaintance with a whole
new vocabulary, wherein such mysteries as
"bias," "hemstitching," "crocking," and
" second raising," were constantly looming up,
clamourous for elucidation. I began to think
that I should be obliged to engage an inter-
preter, and was of a mind to formulate an ap-
peal to Mistress S. T. Rorer.

It is an ill thing to be forced to confess one-
self at fault, and yet to this admission was
1 constrained by the candour which is my
most admirable quality. There was something
amiss about life at "Sans Souci!" There was
a curious stillness in the house, which, to be
sure, I had hoped to find, but wherein I was
disappointed. There was lacking an element
of liveliness, and I said as much to Miss Ber-
rith the next time we met.

"But doesn't Darius supply that.?" she in-
quired.

"You may be sure it is not the noise of
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children I am after," said I. " If that were the
case, Miss Berrith, I should not be living in a
marriage-proof Paradise."

"What is it, then ?" she asked.

"I'm not sure that I know," I answered,
somewhat lamely, as I was aware.

Miss Berrith looked at me suddenly, as
she had done on the night of my "house-
warning."

"When you talk of Paradise," she said, a
little unevenly, "you remind me of Milton."

" Why Milton ?" I asked.

" By reason of a pitiful infirmity," said she,
and that was all I could get out of her. I sup-
pose I had hurt her feelings by the energy of
my expressions. There, again, you have an
instance of the personal note in a woman.
She has no conception of generalities.

"Sometimes I may seem a little bitter," I
ventured, "but, believe me, I'm not. Mar-
riage is like a cold bath — beneficial to some
men and fatal to others. I am one of the latter
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class, that's all. I am far from denying a
woman's utility in the household — mind you,
I say a woman, not a wife! Why, the episode
of Galvin and the bill-of-f are taught me that
much. I am not so prejudiced or dogged as
you think. Miss Berrith. I can learn a lesson
as well as the next man."

"Can you.?" said she. "If you will allow
me to say so, Mr. Sands, I think your capa-
city in that line is likely to be severely taxed.
So far as the scope of a woman's utility is con-
cerned, there is only one individual who
knows less about it than a bachelor."

"And that is.? "I asked.

"A married man," said Miss Berrith.

Arbuthnot came again, two Sundays later,
but I was not so pleased to see him as I had
been on the first occasion. It is to be pre-
sumed that a man would always be gratified
to act as host to angels ; but as for ordinary
mortals, if their visits are to be really desira-
ble, they must be —

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" Like those of angels, short and far be-
tween."

As a rule, the man whom you invite with
pleasure, because he appreciates your wit,
you dismiss with pleasure, because he takes
exception to your politics. There is not one in
a hundred who leaves your house as admir-
able in your eyes as when he entered it. Little
eccentricities crop out to annoy you, little
tricks of manner or of speech manifest them-
selves, and, in general, you are disappointed
in him. You can't resent them — that's the
worst of it. There is only one situation more
trying than entertaining, and that is being en-
tertained.

Yes, although it is said that to be an ideal
host is hard, I think that to be an ideal guest
is harder. The host end of the problem is
comparatively simple, after all. You have
only to find out what your guest wants to do,
and let him do it. But as a guest you must
first find out what your host is accustomed to
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do, and then do it yourself. Let me not be
thought pedantic if I here set down ten rules
for guests. The knowledge was painfully
attained, and so is worthy of respect.

1. Make clear the date of your departure,
diplomatically, but with promptitude. The
most generous host would fain be sure his
note has not been misunderstood.

2. Order the room assigned to you as if it
were your own — or even more so. The ser-
vants have several other things to do.

3. Rise when you are called. Time waits
for no man, and there is less reason why a hot
oven should.

4. If you don't see what you want, ask for
it, for nothing flatters more the vanity of a
host. But first be sure he has it in the house.

5. Laugh unaffectedly at his jokes. He
does not tell them for the pleasure of perceiv-
ing that you have heard them before.

6. Praise the cooking while the waitress is
in the room. Compared to her, Marconi is a
novice in the transmission of news, and every
cook is a friend worth having.

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7. Always allege that you have never slept
better in your life. Your host did not stuff the
pillows, nor is he responsible for your con-
science.

8. Tip the servants liberally. If necessary,
remember that you did not have to pay for
your room.

9. Do not fail, before leaving, to remark
upon the beauty of the surroundings. They
may be the most odious in the world, but
your host would not be living there if he
thought so.

10. Write a civil note to say you enjoyed
yourself — even if that was all you did enjoy.

While I am about it, I see no reason why I
should not set down ten rules for hosts.
Equally with the foregoing, were they born
out of bitter experience: hence, equally with
the foregoing, are they entitled to respect.

1. Meet your guest at the station. It is
charity, not hospitality, that begins at home.

2. Don't force second helpings upon him.
It is easier to propose food than to dispose of it.

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3. Don't discuss the shortcomings of your
neighbours. It was probably to escape neigh-
bours that he accepted your invitation.

4. Don't dispose of every moment of his
time before he arrives. Too many visits re-
semble three days in Rome on a Cook ticket.

5. Beware of showing him collections of
photographs of your relations. It is an at-
tack on an unarmed man.

6. Talk less than you listen. He does his
listening at home.

7. Remember 2/OM invited him. Blame your-
self if a visit which augured well at the begin-
ning bores badly at the end.

8. Don't make excuses. He can see with-
out a magnifying glass, and you won't have
time to get them all in, anyhow.

9. Make it as easy for him to go as it was
to come. Fly-paper is not hospitality.

10. Ask him to come again. It is a perfectly
safe risk so long as you don't put it in writing.

It is proper, at this point, to speak briefly
of my garden. I felt it to be appropriate to
my condition of country gentleman that I
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should have a garden, though from the first
I very sensibly decided to limit it to flowers,
being aware that it is harder to raise vegetables
than the money to buy them. To this intent,
I had a florist down from town, and we went
around the place together and selected the
most favourable spots for beds. He dealt with
the question from a purely technical stand-
point, and, as I had very foolishly intimated at
the outset that I was more or less of an expert
on horticulture, it was impossible for me to
confess to him that I understood nothing
whatever of the uncouth jargon in which he
saw fit to express himself. There was some
talk of perennial and deciduous, and a string
of Latin similar to that in which one's physi-
cian is accustomed to issue instructions to a
druggist over one's head, and I assented,
with the sudden inspiration that nothing could
be more diverting than not to know what man-
ner of flowers you were to have until they
made their appearance.
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Four days later arrived a number of pansy
and heliotrope plants, which were duly bed-
ded, and passed into a long and painful de-
cline on the following afternoon. The rest was
a matter of seeds, which I am constrained
to believe were inadvertently planted up-
side down, and will some day make beautiful
the gardens of Hong Kong. Certain it is that
they never came my way.

A more bitter disappointment I have never
experienced. Having no idea of the length
of time necessary for germination I did not
cease to expect the arrival of my unknown
flowers until late in the following autumn. It
was not until the first snow fell that I forever
lost my faith in florists.

This fiasco also I reported to Miss Berrith.

"And so," I said, "it seems I am to have
no flowers, after all."

"It is the first, and, let us hope, not the
greatest of the disappointments of 'Sans
Souci,'" she answered.

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There was in her voice that Httle note of
compassion which I had had occasion to re-
mark before, and which irritated me im-
measurably, although I could not have said
why.

"You have a curious air of pitying me, at
times," I said, "which I am at a loss to under-
stand. Was ever a man less pitiable than I ?
I have everything I want, and not a tie nor
a responsibility in the world. I have found
for myself what I conceive to be as close to
perfect happiness as is humbly attainable. I
am perfectly satisfied. And yet, once or twice,
you have looked at me, spoken to me, as if —
as if — "

"As if ?" she repeated.

"As if I were a cripple!" I burst out, in a
sudden excess of annoyance.

"Oh, Mr. Sands," she exclaimed im-
pulsively, " I think you are the most pathetic
figure I have ever seen!"

[90]

CHAPTER FOUR

At the end of six months, life at "Sans Souei"
had developed from a novelty into a habit. It
was hard for me to appreciate that I had ever
knovsrn any form of existence other than this,
in which hour followed hour, and day succeed-
ed day, with a kind of pleasurable monotony.
The city might have been a thousand miles
away instead of barely thirty. I can find no
better way of describing the singular change
which had come over my life than by recording
the fact that my watch ran down at frequent
intervals, and that, at intervals almost as
frequent, I would forget to wind it up again.
This, all said and done, would seem to be the
essential difference between town and coun-
try life— I mean, the vast significance of time
in relation to the one, as compared with its
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utter unimportance in connection with the
other. It is a contrast in which town life comes
out a shabby second-best. There we are no
more than the slaves of a precedent which we
carry in our waistcoat pockets and frequently
consult with feverish anxiety. The hands of
our watch are but two tyrants, who make life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, a mock-
ery and a sham. We rise, not by any means
because we are through with sleeping, but
because the shorter of these tyrants points to
VII ; and retire, not because we have not been
ready for bed three full hours before, but be-
cause precedent whispers that it is a childish
thing to make the most sensible of all moves
before eleven o'clock. We eat, not because
we are hungry, but because it is half after
seven or twelve or six. In short, there is not
a metropolitan of us all, who, when he winds
his watch at night, is not slavishly committing
himself to a definite course of action for twen-
ty-four hours to come.

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At "Sans Souci," on the contrary, I was
not ashamed to be up with the first chirp of a
robin, or to lie abed till ten : to make a hearty
luncheon, or skip that interesting function
altogether, as fancy prompted : to doze over a
book till midnight, or to be hand and glove
with Morpheus before the light was fairly out
of the west. I knew what the weather was,
but never the precise time of day. I felt that
I was hungry, or not hungry, but never that
I should not eat or should. I slept at noonday
as shamelessly as at midnight. If there was
any convention about my life at all, it was a
convention to which there was only one dele-
gate, and every motion I made was secure
from opposition. In this enlightened republic
there are eighty-five millions of inhabitants,
and of these, perhaps eighty-five are absolute-
ly free. I was a member of the glorious min-
ority — and the most 'pathetic figure Miss Susie
Berrith had ever seen! From the moment of
its utterance, I have never been able to con-
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sider that remark with the faintest sensation
of patience.

It is only fair to admit that it was Galvin
who oiled the wheels which ran thus smoothly,
though I was far from suspecting to what an
extent my comfort was dependent upon her
exertions until I was abruptly deprived of her
services — fortunately, for a few hours only.
The occasion was the marriage of a cousin of
hers in town, and I readily granted the request
for a brief leave of absence which she made
with some show of hesitation.

"It's only for the day," she said, "but,
then, there's your luncheon, Mr. Sands."

I remembered with a smile the meals I had
prepared at the age of thirteen, in a cave of
my own finding, over the rudest of fires, and
with sticks and flat stones for my only uten-
sils, instead of forks and pans. Never, I think,
were catfish more palatably fried, never were
sweet potatoes baked to such a turn. I re-
flected that it would be surprising indeed, if
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I could not contrive to equal, or even to excel,
these early exploits, with all the culinary
equipment of "Sans Souci" at my command.

"Leave that to me, Galvin," said I. "I
shall manage very well."

Galvin only paused to post me upon the
whereabouts of the tea, the milk, the eggs, the
coal and the kindling-wood, and then de-
parted. From a window I beheld her, hasten-
ing down the path, arrayed like a lily of the
field (somewhat advanced in years) and,
five minutes later, I was pottering about my
kitchen like a kitten in a work-basket. From
the child with the jam-pot to the usurper of
a throne, I suppose there is no one of us who
does not exult in the sensation of being tem-
porary monarch of what he has only a ques-
tionable right to survey.

I am confident to this instant that all would

have been well with me and with my luncheon

if Arbuthnot had not come down from town,

and dropped in upon me, most inopportunely,

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just as I was about to begin operations. I ex-
plained the situation, with a word of decent
apology.

"Hum," said Arbuthnot. "If I had known
that, I would have lunched in town."

" You might go further and fare worse than
here," I retorted, a trifle tartly.

"That remains to be seen," he answered
dryly. "Are there any sardines ?"

"There are," said I, "but I think you will
not need them. I was just about to fry some
eggs, and bake some potatoes."

"By all means," said Arbuthnot. "I will
hold the sardines in reserve. The best laid
eggs of hens and men gang aft a-gley."

"That is a long way from Burns," I re-
marked.

"Let us hope," said he, "that we shall be
able to say the same of the eggs."

His implied distrust awakened in me a
vexed ambition, and, hastily summoning all
my knowledge of the subject, I resolved upon
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a little cake. Flour, two eggs, baking-powder,
milk, vanilla extract— I had accomplished the
thing a hundred times in my mother's kitchen,
as a boy, with the cook confining herself to
looking on. This, with fried eggs, potatoes,
tea, and, if Arbuthnot insisted, the sardines,
would be ample, and forthwith I girded my-
self to the task. I observed with satisfaction
that the confidence of my demeanour silenced
Arbuthnot at once.

I suppose it was the baking-powder, al-
though I managed to rescue all but a very
little after I had upset it in the dough. Or
else there was'nt enough room in the oven for
the confection to rise. Whatever the reason,
the thing I made was a conspicuous failure as
a cake, albeit it might have passed muster as
a balloon. Arbuthnot merely snorted when
I took it out, prying the crust off the roof of
the oven with a carving-knife. It was quite
black, and smelt abominably. It would never
have done for me to leave it where it could
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have fallen under Galvin's eyes, but I was
obliged to keep it concealed under a pile of
shirts in my clothes-press for a full week, be-
fore I was able to catch the ashman when she
was not by.

The time absorbed in separating the cake
from the oven was responsible for the fiasco
of the eggs — that, and the fact that I forgot
to put a lump of butter in the pan. They ad-
hered, all six of them, to the latter, with the
utmost promptitude, and a tenacity worthy
of a like number of leeches or English bull-
dogs, and by the time I had persuaded them
to loosen their grip upon it, they were quite
unfit for publication. I have never discov-
ered what it was I did to hurt the feelings of
the potatoes, but they sulked from the outset,
and obstinately refused to be baked. The
edible part of them, after a solid hour in
the oven, was, like beauty, skin-deep and
no more.

Arbuthnot made the tea. It was excellent,
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not at all because of any ability on his part,
but because it is of all things the easiest to
prepare. I will not consume space with a ver-
batim transcription of his comments upon the
other dishes. They were nothing more than
a collision between the multiplication table
and the phrase "I told you so," and wholly
uncalled-for, in view of the fact that he had
the sardines — which were all he asked for in
the beginning.

That evening, much to my relief, Galvin
came again into her own. I had no further
craving for the kitchen. It is a bourne in
which no caviler re-burns, and I felt that I
could never forget those eggs. Newton de-
duced the force of gravitation from the fall
of an apple, and James Watt the principles
of steam locomotion from observation of a
tea-kettle. In like manner, I am persuaded,
did Master Peter Cooper evolve from an at-
tempt to fry eggs without a lump of butter
the possibilities of glue. Not the ultimate pos-
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sibilities, however. That discovery is mine,
and dates from the disastrous day in question.

For a time life resumed the even tenor of
its way.

Withal — since candour is the keynote of
these pages — there were times when I was
lonely. One's power of conversation is like a
bottle of choice perfumery. The glass stopper
of disuse has a distressful way of sticking,
when left too long in place, and one must re-
sort to sweet oil and glycerine and hot water
to make the contents available again. Day
after day of self-communion was having
something of this effect on me. I was in need
of a companion with whom to talk, and, for
lack of a better, I turned to Darius Doane.
Galvin was out of the question. Hers was the
only case I have ever known in which it did
not take two to make a conversation. On the
rare occasions when she talked at all, it would
have required two wedges and a sledge-ham-
mer to force the briefest of replies in edge-
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wise. Moreover, the manner of her discourse
was disjointed to the last degree. Sequence
of thought with her went round and round
Hke a squirrel in a wheel and with about as
definite results. She started, she continued,
but she never arrived.

"I once had a niece, Mr. Sands," she would
say, for example, "that is, she wasn't exactly
my niece — or, yes, you might call her a niece,
I suppose. She was my brother-in-law's child
by his first wife — a very intelligent girl, she
was — that is, she was hardly a girl — she was
twenty — well, you might say a girl — she
wasn't quite twenty — but she was a very in-
telligent girl — girl is hardly the word, because
she seemed older — at all events, I always
thought of her as my niece— in fact, she might
just as well have been — though calling her my
niece didn't make her so— but if she had been
I couldn't have thought more of her— I had a
niece who didn't seem half so much so as she
did — though she was very intelligent, too —
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Far From The Maddening Girls

but the one I'm speaking of — though she was
really no relation at all — used to say herself
that it seemed as if — which shows my feelings
wasn't unnatural — not that I mean to say but
what — but then, she wasn't, except by mar-
riage, which can't be called a relation —
though I felt as if — and seeing that she was
so intelligent — I couldn't be blamed for feel-
ing — not that I ever claimed — but if she had
been my niece — "

As the butcher called regularly once in
every twenty-four hours, it will readily be
seen that Galvin was more than apt to be in-
terrupted by his coming before she had made
much progress along these lines. As for my
part in the conversation, if I was to come in at
all, it could only be after she had gone oxit.
The sixth side of the Galvin octagon was
anecdotical.

So I came to having a daily chat with Da-
rius, and almost the first thing I discovered
was that what the pole-star is to the mariner,
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or the semaphore to the locomotive engineer,
Miss Susie Berrith was to my youthful retain-
er. He candidly stated that she had taught him
all he knew, and, I suspected from the amount
and diversity of his information, close to the
measure of all she knew herself. She had re-
ferred to him as her Sunday-school scholar,
but it seemed, what I had not known before,
that he was her every-day pupil, as well. The
nearest school-house was four miles distant —
a bitter matter in snow-time — and so Darius
and four of his similarly situated fellows went
regularly to the Berrith residence for their
schooling. I felt that it was very singular that
Miss Berrith had never mentioned this to me.

"Dere's all kines er people," said Darius
Doane, "an' den, der's Miss Berrit'. She'd
oughter git marrit."

"In the name of mercy, why.''" I demand-
ed. The times were certainly piteously askew
when babes of twelve thus took the marriage
question on their tongues!
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"She cud make some 'un more happier'n
wot he is," said Darius. "An' you'd oughter
git marrit, Mist' San's, 'cause some 'un cud
make yer more happier'n wot y'are."

I looked at him aghast, an axiom from my
half -forgotten "Euclid's Elements" buzzing
in my brain : — " Things which are equal to the
same thing are equal to each other." Miss
Berrith was equal to matrimony, / was equal
to matrimony. Were Miss Berrith and I —

Good gracious! what an infant terrible he
was, that boy, Darius Doane!

"Darius," said I severely, "the path needs
raking."

" I'll comb ut fer yer in er jiff. Mist' San's,"
said he, and, five minutes later, through the
window of my den, my ears were saluted by
the commingled sounds of a rake on gravel
and Darius on the mouth-organ. He was com-
mitting melodicide upon the undeservedly
popular air of "A Hot Time in the Old Town
To-night," and as the mouth-organ wheezed
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into the measure of the chorus, new un-
dreamt-of and torturing words seemed to
sear themselves upon my mind: — -

"She cud make — some'un — more happier'n
wot he is !

"Some'un — cud make — yer more hap-
pier'n wot y'are!

" Dere's all — kines er people — an' den
dere is Miss Berrit' !

"An' you'd oughter — git marrit — Mist'
San's!"

Was it any wonder that I felt that the moon
of my intelligence was in its last quarter ?

Presently, I had an opportunity of taxing
Miss Berrith with what I felt to be her undue
reticence. I had been thrashing through the
woods for a half-hour with no particular aim
but exercise in view, when I came abruptly
into a little clearing, where the level pitched
sharply down in a kind of rocky terrace, and,
pausing, to take breath and survey the vista
thus opened to me, I was suddenly aware of a
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familiar sound, which I was able to identify
almost instantly as the voice of Darius Doane.
But what were those singular sentiments to
which, in that peaceful corner of woodland, it
was giving utterance ?

"An' as ter ketch de gale
Roun' weered de flappin' sail,
"^ Deaf J' was de helmsman's hail,

' Deaf widout kerworter I '
Midships wid irn keel
Steruck we her ribs er steel ;
Down her berlack huck did reel
T'rough de berlack worter !"

My experience of Darius had taught me to
expect many things of him, but not this — not
"The Skeleton in Armor," declaimed, with
something of rude eloquence, at high noon in
the heart of the forest primeval ! I stood as if
chained to the spot, while the poem went on
and on, until the concluding lines were
reached :

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"Dere fom de flowin' bowl
Deep derinks de worrior's soul,
Skool—"

"No," said another voice — Miss Berrith's!
"Skull," ventured Darius, after a pause.
"No," said Miss Berrith again. "Say the
whole line. What rhymes with ' soul ' ?"
"Skoal!" exclaimed Darius triumphantly.

"Skoal to de Nort'lan'! Skoal !
Duss de tale entit."

"I can't never remember dat woid. Miss
Berrit'."

"You did very well," said Miss Berrith's
voice, " but it is time you were off for dinner.
Don't be late for work this afternoon. Good-
bye, Darius."

" Gubbye, Miss Berrit'," answered Darius,

with very evident regret, and, shortly, there

followed the crackle of trampled twigs, and

then, from a greater distance the sound of

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"Marching Through Georgia," egregiously
distorted upon the mouth-organ. Peering
down from my coign of vantage, I espied Miss
Berrith seated upon a fallen tree, her fingers
busy with some intricacy of fancy-work, and
what I soon learned was a volume of Longfel-
low perched, tent-like, upon her knee.

"How do you do.?" I called.

She looked about her, with a little start of
surprise. "Is that you, Mr. Sands?" she an-
swered. " Wherever are you ? "

"Up here, behind the barberry-bush,"
said I. "I've been leaves-dropping." And I
scrambled rapidly down, to find her blushing
not unattractively.

I think that at this point it is appropriate
to mention a certain alteration in Miss Ber-
rith which I had begun to notice, and which,
if I may be permitted the expression, friend-
lied my feeling for her to a very marked de-
gree. It may have been due to a simple regard
for comfort as the weather had grown warmer,
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or to a mere caprice, or, what is more likely
than either, certain skillful hints which I
had dropped from time to time: but she ap-
peared no more in the distorted semblances
of masculine attire which had impressed me
so unfavourably in the first days of our ac-
quaintance. Instead, she was now arrayed in
the simple, white variety of material which
some women use to clothe their daughters
withal, and others for their spare-room cur-
tains: or else it was a silk-shirt effect, and a
trim, shortish walking- skirt. In either, she
was far from plain, although at first I had
thought her distinctly so. She had her share
of freckles; but, with them, good eyes and
teeth, and a kind of clear under-complexion
which was very pleasing. I think, not only that
I showed some appreciation of the change in
her attire, but that my approbation gratified
her. All women are on the outlook for that
kind of thing, and, of course, the approval of
a man of my own experience was flattering to
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a girl so young and so unfamiliar with life as
she.

As I took my seat beside her, on the trunk
of the fallen tree, she seemed to feel that an
explanation was in order.

" Darius has a very pleasant knack of mem-
orizing good poetry," she began. "I wish you
could have heard him reciting ' You know, we
French stormed Ratisbon,' a moment ago.
But perhaps you did ?'^

"No," said I.

"It is rather nice, I think," continued Miss
Berrith, " that a boy in his position should be
good at Browning."

"It is rather lamentable," I retorted, with
a rueful glance at my rusty boots, "that he is
not equally good at blacking."

" He has a soul above blacking," said Miss
Berrith lightly.

"Whereas blacking above a sole," said I,
" would be very much more to the point. Seri-
ously, Miss Berrith, I hope you are not spoil-
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ing Darius. He shouldn't get a false idea of
life, you know. There is not likely to be much
poetry, either good or bad, in the existence
which he is destined to lead."

" The more reason for making hay while the
sun shines," said Miss Berrith — very illogical-
ly, as I thought.

"There are ways and ways of learning to
make hay," I objected.

"Only one, however," said she, "of learn-
ing that the sun shines. The pity of it is that
a boy should need to have such things pointed
out to him ; but, since he must, I am very glad
that I am the one to do it."

"Yes, I know the feeling," I agreed, "but
in a sense somewhat less sentimental. I, too,
have been a factor in the education of Darius.
Teaching him to polish shoes is, perhaps, not
a great thing on the face of it, but remember
that he has been learning to understand the
pleasures of industry, from the moment when
I first pointed out the brush."
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Miss Berrith put down her fancy-work with
a little laugh. '

"Each to his trade, Mr. Sands," said she.
" Remember that Darius has been learning to
appreciate the honey of poetry, from the mo-
ment when I first pointed out the comb."

"Oh, be reasonable!" I protested, smiling,
nevertheless, at her sally. "It isn't a question
of sentiment, is all this, but of what is best for
the boy. We have been talking of shoes and of
poetry. Well, suppose that I were a cobbler,
and you a poet, and both of us offering to teach
Darius our trades. Which of us would com-
mon-sense suggest that he should stick to .''"

"He would probably act the part of cob-
bler — " began Miss Berrith.

"Exactly!" I was interrupting her, tri-
umphantly, when —

"By sticking to the last," said she.

There is never much use in an endeavour to
combat this kind of frivohty, and so I went
upon another tack.

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"Was it modesty," I asked, "which has
thus far deterred you from mentioning the
identity of his teacher ?"

"I could not suppose you would be inter-
ested," said Miss Berrith.

"On the contrary," I replied, "I have a
very sincere admiration for those who are en-
gaged in doing good, of one kind or another,
and according to their lights. I am only afraid
that you are too gentle with him."

" Can one be too gentle ? " she asked ingen-
uously.

"Oh, yes," I assured her. "'Spare the rod
and spoil the child,' you know. Darius has
his part cut out for him, and the best one
could do would be to teach him to play it prop-
erly. He should be taught, first of all, a due
respect for his superiors : then, devotion to his
work: and, finally, that those in a subordinate
position should not expect too much in the
way of luxury or liberty. One is never too
young to learn such lessons."
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"It is a dull creed enough," observed Miss
Berrith.

" I might readily challenge you to find one
more illumined by common-sense," I replied,
"but we have discussed that, and I suppose
we must agree to disagree. What I wanted to
say was that, when you refrained from telling
me of the work you are doing for Darius and
the others, you did me an injustice, and your-
self a greater one. I will not deny that my
opinion of you would have been very consider-
ably modified by the knowledge that you were
giving a portion of your time to the education
of five boys. It is not surprising that we should
differ in our views of what the nature of such
an education should be, but I am sure that,
while mine may be more practical, yours are
productive of good."

"In that case," said Miss Berrith reflective-
ly, " it is plain that I did do myself a great in-
justice, for I am aware that to have your good
opinion is a very desirable thing. Indeed, the
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only person who, to my certain knowledge,
possesses it is the most eminently satisfied in-
dividual I have ever seen."

I thought of her father, and then of Arbuth-
not, without seeming to find a clue, and I sup-
pose I looked at her perplexedly, for suddenly
she laughed outright.

"I think I am at a loss to know to whom
you refer," I remarked a trifle stiffly.

" If there are no mirrors in your bungalow,"
said she, "I will give you one for Christmas,
Mr. Sands."

I was downright angry — so angry, indeed,
that I felt that if I did not immediately take
my leave of her, I should say something rude.
I did so, therefore, with a self-restraint which
did me credit, and a courtesy which was far
from her deserts. I had been absolutely squan-
dering my time. The advice which I had prof-
fered in all kindliness had been practically
flung back in my face, and, at the end, I had
been made the victim of unjust and capricious
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ridicule. And here I may be permitted a
digression, to the intent of setting forth the
sum and substance of my reflections of the en-
suing half-hour, during which I tramped the
woods in vain endeavour to assuage my irri-
tation.

As between men, the laws of honourable
combat demand that when you have disarm-
ed your adversary, you shall return him his
rapier, with a smile, a bow, and a courteous
word. Not so in a duel with a woman. It is
the business of her tongue — that, which, of all
weapons, slips most readily from its sheath —
first to disarm you, and then thrust home. But
this ignorance of, or indifference to, the whole
duty of the generous antagonist is not the
least of the perils which you brave. The femi-
nine brain is a thing of such excessive eccen-
tricity that, without resource to the hackney-
ed simile of the kaleidoscope, I find myself
wholly destitute of an adequate comparison.
To follow, even approximately, a woman's
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train of thought would be possible only to a
water-spider, which has a similar faculty for
skidding at unheard-of angles. Where a man
proceeds over the landscape of logic like a
trained hound, scenting his way unerringly
from a definite hypothesis to a definite con-
clusion, a woman's argument reappears at in-
tervals, like a porpoise, at points to which
there has been no such thing as the possibility
of tracing her progress. Her reason does not
go from step to step, but falls down-stairs
headlong, touching only the high places : and
always, as I have had occasion to remark
before, the validity of her deductions is ma-
terially impaired by the intrusion of the
purely personal. You may say to a man, for
example, that all men are liars, and it is
probable that he will view you in the light
of a philosopher: but venture to observe to
one of the opposite sex that the name of frail-
ty is woman, and the chances are in favour
of her regarding you as a boor. A man, in
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short, lias an eye for generalities; while a
woman will pounce upon your most abstract
remark, try it on before the nearest mirror,
and, finding it unbecoming, will lay the blame
on you !

I returned to "Sans Souci, "after the brief in-
terview recorded above, more than ever out of
humour with the unfair sex. I was excessive-
ly annoyed — - ten per cent, by the recollection
of Miss Berrith's remarks, and ninety per
cent, by the knowledge that it was in her pow-
er to annoy me. The persons with this power
are the most dangerous enemies to one's
peace of mind. I can view with composure
the existence of incendiaries, train-robbers
and assassins : but I am unable to tolerate the
thought of scandal-mongers, bores, and pert
young women. You never find anyone with
sufficient grounds of complaint against basi-
lisks, werwolves, or the sea-serpent : but there
is a deal of legitimate objection to the domes-
ticated mosquito.

[118]

Far From The Maddening Girls

There was no getting around it. With the
best will in the world to make allowance for
the infirmities of her sex, I was painfully and
resentfully aware that Miss Berrith was not
merely a disturbing influence in my life, but
the only disturbing influence: and not the
least exasperating element of the situation lay
in the fact that it was none of my making. If,
knowing the feminine faculty for creating a
disturbance — "le mal que pent faire une
femme," as De Musset deftly puts it — I had
nevertheless seen fit to marry, it would have
been a different thing. If you play with match-
es, and set yourself ablaze, you have no one
but yourself to blame, and it is unreasonable
and childish to squeal at Destiny: but if some
one discharges Roman-candle balls in at your
front windows, there is every warrant for your
regarding it as a liberty and an imposition. I
conceive that I had the best of reasons for con-
sidering my treatment at Miss Berrith's hands
as saliently unhandsome.
[119]

Far From The Maddening Girls

When the wave flings itself pettishly against
the shore which opposes its views of progress,
it does not reflect that thereby is created an
undertow which will sweep from their com-
fortable resting-places any number of inno-
cent little pebbles which had no share what-
ever in defeating its purpose — the which is a
lack of forethought reasonable enough in a
wave, but wholly unpardonable in a girl. It
showed, as much as anything could, Miss
Berrith's utter want of consideration, that she
ignored what I may call the reflex action of
perversity. She had been thoughtlessly petu-
lant with me, and it was wholly due to this
that I, who am usually of the most equable
and tolerant temper in the world, discharged
Darius on the following day. It was unjust on
my part; if you will; but she had moiled the
spring of my customary serenity. I had ex-
hausted my store of patience upon her former
humours, and with this last strain upon its re-
sources the reservoir went completely dry.
[120]

Far From The Maddening Girls

The rake was passive in the left hand of
Darius, and the mouth-organ somewhat more
than active in his right, while, by way of add-
ing dissonance to discord, the air upon which
he was engaged was Galvin's adagio render-
ing of "Bonnie Dundee." Thenceforward I
numbered this among the most malignant of
the contagious diseases.

"Darius," said I.

The marshalled host of freckles made way
obsequiously, and from their ranks emerged
his familiar and disarming smile. But this
time I was like adamant.

"Yessir.?" he answered.

"You play a good deal upon the mouth-
organ," I observed.

" I'll perlay more w'en I git de reel hang uv-
vit," said Darius.

"Now, Heaven forfend!" I ejaculated in-
wardly; adding, aloud:

"And Miss Berrith tells me you learn con-
siderable poetry by heart."
[121]

Far From The Maddening Girls

"I'm er-goin' t' give more 'n' more timet'
pomes f 'm now on," was his reply. " I bin er-
doin' pieces outer Longfeller 'n' Berownin',
but nex' week Miss Berrit' is er-goin' t' learn
me Shakesper."

"Then, Darius," said I, "I clearly perceive
that these increasing demands upon your time
make it inadvisable for you to remain longer
in my employ. After to-day I shall have no
further need of your services."

"D'yer mean I'm fy-ud ?" asked Darius.

"That," I answered, "is the substance of
my meaning. Here are your wages for the
coming week. You need not come here any
more."

And I wheeled, and walked into the house.

I am perplexed to account for the singular
circumstance that there are days when every-
thing, from the attempt to part your hair in
the morning to the position of your pet pillow
at night, is an unequivocal failure. The day
in question was such a one. The luncheon
[122 ]

Far From The Maddening Girls

which Galvin elected to serve me was not fit
for a fretful child, and I could not eat it. When
I set myself to write, my pencil points made
more breaks than the Messrs. Westinghouse.
A collar which had never irked me might as
well have been a circular saw, for all the com-
fort I derived from its contact with my neck.
It was a general half -holiday for the horse-
hairs which formed the stuffing of my chair
cushions. Where it was their custom to at-
tend strictly to business, now they all had
their heads out of the windows of their dwell-
ings, taking the air. The house was full of
flies. A dog, with whom I was not even on
speaking terms, went round and round the
bungalow, yapping for a wager. Dolorously-
warbled reminiscences of a supposititious life
in marble halls, in the company of vassals and
serfs, came to my ears from Galvin at the
wash-tub. At length, in a pure white passion,
I strode off through the woods, turned my
ankle, was caught in a drenching thunder-
[123]

Far From The Maddening Girls

shower, and said two or seven things which
have no place in these innocent pages. It was
a day which caused me to look upon time as a
soporific snail, a day to be remembered with
awe and loathing, a day at which to hurl a
black, black stone, with careful aim. Above
all, it was a day to prove how much a man
may suffer through no fault of his own.

On the morning following, however, Darius
reappeared, the bearer of a note from Miss
Berrith. This curiosity of literature ran after
this manner :

" My Dear Mr. Sands:

"You will have had a night to think over
your action of yesterday, whereof Darius has
given me an account, and to remember sever-
al things : first, that you were once a boy your-
self, and that at twelve you did not possess all
the sobriety which is yours at thirty; then,
that you have vented your irritation against
one person upon the entirely guiltless shoul-
ders of another; and, finally, that your action
[124]

Far From The Maddening Girls

passes over his head and does grievous harm

to his mother and the invahd he was aiding her

to support. Of course you are in a position to

do as you please, and I in that of a meddler

in venturing to interfere: but not only is it

merely a kind of weakness to exercise one's

strength upon an inferior, it is the noblest

kind of strength to own up to that weakness

and repair the evil before it is too late. I am

giving you that chance, for Darius wiU wait

for an answer. ^ ^ „

" Susie Berrith.

Galvin had brought in the note, and now
stood waiting with folded hands.

" Did Darius bring this ? " I asked.

I was not so much disconcerted by the
words of Galvin's reply, as by the manner in
which she kept her upper lip perfectly rigid,
for all the world as if it had been starched and
ironed. The Sunday-school superintendent of
my early childhood had a similar trick of in-
timating disapproval, and as I looked away
from Galvin and down at the note again, it
[125]

Far From The Maddening Girls

was with a curious and most uncomfortable
sense of having forgotten to learn the collect
for the day.

" He did," Galvin was saying, " and if I do
make the remark — and of course I know I
have no right — but I cannot, I cannot see in-
justice done — the way you have treated him
is a crying shame — we all have our faults —
but he was working for his bread and butter
- — indeed, it is few enough of us ever sees the
butter — but that's always the way — the rich
against the poor — and if I do say it — "

"No, don't say it, Galvin," I interrupted.
"I have no doubt but what you are quite
right. You needn't wait. I will give Darius
the answer myself."

Galvin had showed her seventh side. It was
the chivalric, with a touch of the socialistic.

Darius was at the door. When he saw
me his inevitable smile broke forth. I think
he had more freckles than on the preced-
ing day.

[126]

THE LITTLE GREY HOUSE

brings misfortune. The youngsters nobly
stand by " Patergrey," and buckle down
to making the best of a bad thing. In the
end the resourceful " Rob " proves that she
has a man's business capacity as well as a
man's name and brings fortune out of the
wreck. There are a lot of good whole-
some boys in the story, and just a spice of
boy and girl romance to savor the tale. It
is told sweetly, and is quite comparable to
Louisa M. Alcott's best.

"The tale is delightfully natural, made up as
it is of the pleasures and hardships of every-day
existence, and can be heartily recomniended."

— Neivark Neivs.

"Delightfully told in a style which will make
some readers declare that Miss Alcott at her best
was not more entertaining." — Washington Star.

"One could scarcely ask for a more delightful
group of young folks than are found in this
volume," — Brooklyn Eagle.

$L2S
McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.

PUBLISHERS

NEW YORK

1 he Little Cjrey House

MARION AMES TAGGART
Author of The Wyndham Girls, etc.

Frontispiece in color by Ethel Franklin Betts

Roberta Prue and Oswyth, the youthful
heroines of THE LITTLE GREY
HOUSE, are just the cheerful, courageous,
resourceful kind of girls it is a pleasure for
anyone to meet. They take life in a sun-
shiny manner and their brightness shines
through all the unhappiness that besets the
little grey cottage and conquers all its mis-
fortunes. These little girls have for a
father a visionary inventor, whose devo-
tion to his new^ machine for making bric-
quettes consumes the family resources and

Far From The Maddening Girls

"There is no answer to Miss Berrith's
note," I said as formally as I could, "but I
have changed my mind about discharging
you, Darius. You may come to-morrow, as
usual."

Then I shut the door abruptly upon him
and his smile. If he had thanked me ! . . .

Into such a coil of discomfort was I come
by reason of my ill-advised condescension to
an immature girl. I am broad-minded enough
to admit that the fault was not wholly hers.
Had I been true to my avowed principles
from the very first, "Sans Souci" had never
been invaded by those petty annoyances
against which it was expressly designed to
secure me. The whole difficulty lay in the
fact that a man is never entirely selfish, how-
ever he may strive to steel himself against
generous impulses. I had gone back upon
my tenets because I could not help perceiving
that Miss Berrith would derive satisfaction
from my company, and because I could not
[127]

Far From The Maddening Girls

find it in my heart to treat one so inexperi-
enced with indifference or contempt. Well,
fortunately it was not too late to repair my
fault, and I determined that, when an oppor-
tunity should offer, I would politely but firm-
ly put out of the question her further inter-
ference in my affairs. Thenceforward all be-
tween us should be of the most strictly formal
nature. It might make a great difference to
her, but after all, she had brought the rebuke
upon herself. The result of my noticing her
had been exactly what I might have foreseen.
She had been carried away by it, and now^ —
well, she was flinging herself at my head. In
the privacy of these memoirs I can make this
admission, which otherwise, while undeniably
true, would not be kind or manly.

The privacy of these memoirs. The phrase
reminds me that there are a few words of ex-
planation which should have been written
some distance back.

When you desire to see yourself as others
[128]

Far From The Maddening Girls

see you, you rush off to the photographer's;
and, similarly, there is no better method of
ascertaining the exact quality of your intel-
lectual appearance in the eyes of the world
than to set down your opinions in black and
white. When Miss Berrith made the remark
that I was the most pathetic figure she had
ever seen, and supplemented it later with the
observation that I was the most self-satisfied,
I perceived that there was something radically
wrong with either one or the other of us, and
determined to find out what and which it was.
Due reflection presently satisfied me that the
remarks in question must have been based
upon an imperfect conception of my ideas of
life in general and matrimony in particular.
A glance in my mirror was all that was neces-
sary to convince me that my personal appear-
ance had nothing whatever to do with it. Per-
haps I am not striking, but still less am I
pathetic. Nor was there a better reason for
suspecting a reference to my pecuniary cir-
[129]

Far From The Maddening Girls

cumstances. Decidedly there can be nothing
pathetic about a house of one's own and five
thousand a year. No, positively it must be
my opinions; not only because it is in these
alone that I differ from the general run of
men, but by reason of my having, at one time
or another, expounded them to Miss Berrith
with a considerable degree of candour. Clear-
ly, it was my duty to analyze them carefully;
and, quite as clearly, there could be no more
effective means of so doing than to write out
in order the details of life at "Sans Souci."
Forthwith, I set to work upon these notes.

I think that I have been eminently frank,
unprejudiced, and accurate, but I am not con-
tent with that. It is not enough to put down
existing facts fully and fairly: what is neces-
sary is the attainment of a proper perspec-
tive. One must put the narrative aside, and
then re-read it, after a year or two, in the light
of subsequent experience. That is precisely
what I propose to do with this simple story,
[130]

Far From The Maddening Girls

so soon as I shall have brought it to the point,
now near at hand, when Miss Berrith disap-
pears out of my life as surely as she entered it.
That point attained, I shall have done all that
the most broad-minded of criticized men could
do in the line of endeavouring to ascertain the
cause of complaint; and I can lay my manu-
script aside with the serene conviction that,
in common with a vast majority of the re-
marks made by her sex, those of Miss Berrith
on the subject of my pathos and self-esteem
had no absolute meaning at all.

Before resuming the main thread of my
chronicle, I have only to add that although,
from time to time, I have directly addressed
the gentle reader of these pages, the apos-
trophe has been the merest matter of form,
and any gentle reader, apart from the present
gentle writer, a person purely supposititious.
The artifice is designed simply to lend an air
of disinterestedness and impersonality to this
record, when I shall come to read it over. It
[131]

Far From The Maddening Girls

is certain that I have not the most remote in-
tention of allowing reflections so intimate
(and very particularly in respect to what is
now to follow) to come under any eye but
mine.

[ 132 ]

CHAPTER FIVE

"We are none of us infallible," says a certain
gentle cynic, "not even the youngest," and I
am not minded to impair the validity of this
narrative by an attempt to prove that there
were no weak spots in the armour of my bach-
elor philosophy. I am only a man. It is better
than being a woman, but it does not put one
on a par with the Delphic oracle. I have re-
served my reference to these weaknesses until
now, but with no intention of disguising or
evading them.

No bird ever wove a nest so cunningly, or
of materials so uniformly soft, that there was
nowhere a stick or straw which came into un-
easy contact with its tender ribs; and, care-
fully planned and sedulously supervised as
had been the details of my life at "Sans
|]133!|

Far From The Maddening Girls

Souci," there were yet causes of friction and
sharp angles which even usage did not turn
smooth. For the moment, I am not speaking
of Miss Berrith, nor of anything for which she
was responsible. Nor have I reference to
what might have been avoided by preliminary
carefulness. There is a limit to the possibilities
of forethought. Before you start upon a rail-
way journey you will see men with hand-lamps,
creeping under the coaches, and hear the
sound of their test-hammers upon the axles,
wheels, and springs. That means that minds
trained to the work are applying the most ap-
proved precautionary measures, but it is no
guarantee that unforeseen defects will not crop
out before the train has proceeded many miles.
To sharpen the analogy, it was the flat wheels,
hot boxes, and sprung axles of housekeeping,
which taught me that the domesticity of
"Sans Souci" was a qualified blessing.

The first of these thorns in the flesh to make
its existence manifest came when I discovered
[134]

Far From The Maddening Girls

that Galvin possessed nothing with even a
family resemblance to a bump of locality.
Her capacity for dusting was inexhaustible;
but when it came to replacing the articles
thus treated she was something less system-
atic than a magpie. For one thing, she man-
oeuvred my books in the same manner as my
mattress and my pillows, with the evident im-
pression that, like the former, they were re-
versible, and, like the latter, interchangeable
at will. The effect of this inspiration was vol-
ume five where volume two should be, volume
one in the place of volume six, and volumes
three and four standing, with an air of extreme
dissatisfaction, on their heads. The same
rule applied to my pictures, each of which,
after the morning's dusting was completed,
had a pronounced list, like a ship with her
port coal-bins full and her starboard bunkers
empty. So, too, I would find all the objects
on my sideboard crowded desperately to one
side, as if they had been the passengers on an
tl35]

Far From The Maddening Girls

excursion steamer in the act of passing a bat-
tleship or a boat-race. It would be impossible
for me to compute the amount of time which
I expended daily in restoring the laws of pro-
portion and equilibrium which Galvin had
knocked into a cocked hat.

Then there were rats in the cellar; and if a
rat, either alive or dead, had been a dynamite
bomb on the point of exploding, Galvin could
not have displayed less eagerness to deal with
it upon terms of intimacy. Therefore, if
Darius did not happen to be at hand, it fell to
me to rebait the trap and make decent dis-
posal of the remains — a pretty occupation for
a single gentleman not minded to be troubled
with sordid details !

I am fond of flowers, and, since my garden
had proved as unproductive as the Phoenix,
the local florist delivered semi-weekly a gen-
erous assortment at my door. But there is an
art in arranging flowers, an art in which I was
imperfect and Galvin utterly deficient. My
[136]

HER CAPACITY FOR DUSTING WAS INEXHAUSTIBLE

Far From The Maddening Girls

method was to put them together loosely, so
they should loll negligently from the vase.
This, as I found, causes the whole affair to fall
prone upon the table the moment you loose
your hold of it. Galvin's system, on the con-
trary, was that more commonly employed in
baling cotton or tying up asparagus. When
she had finished, the flowers were so insepa-
rably welded together, and so firmly wedged
into the vase, that it seemed incredible that
the result could have been arrived at without
the aid of a hydraulic press.

Then there was always the eternal question
of the culinary operations. I was asked, for
example, if I would have noodles in my con-
somme. A noodle, to the best of my knowl-
edge and belief, is a kind of silly, half-witted
fellow, and by what process of reasoning it
should appear appropriate to serve him in a
soup it was beyond my power to understand.
I agreed to the suggestion; but Galvin evi-
dently changed her mind, because nothing
[137]

Far From The Maddening Girls

unusual appeared in the consomme thereafter,
if I except some little fragments of macaroni,
which I found very palatable.

Again, it would come to a discussion of the
relative merits of sirloin and porter-house
steaks — a distinction which is as clear in my
mind as that between Gog and Magog. I was
so puzzled in this matter that I determined to
consult a reliable informant, and — on the
memorable day when Galvin's cousin was
married — I looked up the question of steaks
in a cook-book which I found in the drawer of
the kitchen table. As a fair sample of the
chaos which reigns in the departments of
science regulated by the feminine intelligence,
I will submit three fragments of the informa-
tion which I thus gleaned from an eminent
authority.

"Every part of the sirloin ... is named
porter-house steak.

"The rump steak ... is also called por-
ter-house steak.

[138]

Far From The Maddening Girls

"Rump steaks are also known as sirloin."

And there you are! A sirloin is a porter-
house, and a porter-house is a rump steak, and
a rump steak is a sirloin. If the title-page of
that book had not borne the name of another
author, I should infallibly have taken it
to be the work of Mr. Edward Lear.

When I wearied, as I soon did, of these
vexations, for which Galvin was principally
responsible, I turned, for distraction, to Da-
rius Doane, with an amused recollection of
his diverting personality.

But Darius, although restored to favour,
was a changed being. The mouth-organ,
once the bane of my existence, was as mute
as the harp that once through Tara's halls.
The smile which so often had disarmed me
was lost to sight, to memory dear. And the
breeziness of speech which had been his most
salient characteristic had folded its tent like
the Arabs. I was disappointed in Darius. Of
course, the peculiarities I have mentioned
[139]

Far From The Maddening Girls

were, in a sense, his faults ; but then an indi-
vidual has no more right to discard his faults
without due notice to his kinsfolk and ac-
quaintance than to have his hair dyed or the
(jonformation of his nose altered by a facial
specialist. There are more than a few people
whom it would be impossible to recognize
without their faults.

The decorum which had replaced the for-
mer insouciance of Darius impressed me with
a vague uneasiness. I seemed to detect, be-
hind it, the omnipresent and all-powerful in-
fluence of Miss Berrith, that influence of
which I had determined to rid myself and my
surroundings. I know of nothing more dis-
concerting than the feeling that a person who
is materially dependent upon you is really
governed in the details of his conduct by the
judgment of some one else. The implication
that what you say or do is accepted, not as of
necessity final, or even important, but simply
as something to be referred to a superior in-
[140]

Far From The Maddening Girls

telligence for estimate and criticism, is humili-
ating to the last degree. In the nature of
things I should have been the mentor, exem-
plar, and Admirable Crichton of Darius. As
it was, not I, but Miss Susie Berrith, was the
power behind the Doane. I was convinced
that they discussed me, and that I made a poor
showing upon the dissecting table. I detested
the idea. I had no chance of justifying my-
self, of disarming criticism, of throwing a
favourable light upon my character and ac-
tions. If there had been any basis for the hy-
pothesis, I should have thought myself the
prey of a guilty conscience.

I was in a miserable quandary. It would
have been a simple thing enough to have put
a stop to that tendency to open interference
in my affairs which Miss Berrith had at first
displayed; but of this her letter in regard to
my dismissal of Darius was the final instance.
The thing with which I now had to deal was
totally intangible. I felt rather than perceived
[141]

Far From The Maddening Girls

it. So I could only possess my soul in patience,
in the hope that some overt act of meddling,
or some flagrant offer of gratuitous and unso-
licited advice, would enable me to resent her
behaviour in a firm and final manner.

It would be an easy matter to follow out a
premeditated course of action if only the
party of the second part would remain pas-
sive, or, better yet, make the moves which one
expects. But that is exactly what never hap-
pens — otherwise I should have won many a
game of checkers, both actual and metaphori-
cal, in which I have come out second-best.
Now, for example, just as I was preparing to
administer a deserved rebuke to Miss Berrith,
sh-e jumped three of my men, as it were, by in-
viting me to tea. I accepted and went, with a
dim idea that this would afford me the open-
ing I had been seeking. I was never more
mistaken in my life.

Afternoon tea is a thing of which, in or-
dinary, I have a profound distrust. Applied
[142]

Far From The Maddening Girls

to a healthy appetite for dinner, it has much
the same efifect as does kerosene oil when ad-
ministered to an able-bodied mosquito. The
insidiously appealing draught itself, the seem-
ingly innocuous slices of buttered toast and
little cakes which are wont to accompany it,
homoeopathic as are their proportions, under-
mine and corrode a system accustomed to
soups and rare beef as infallibly as the impor-
ted luxuries of Greece sapped the stamina of
the Roman Empire. What is more, the whole
manner of conducting this function is in-
vested with a factitious suggestion of coziness
highly inimical to the equipoise of a bachelor's
philosophy. He will be seen to prosper ama-
zingly in his solitude at all hours save this of
the transitory tryst of day and darkness; but
there is something malignantly hypnotic
about the tinkle of little spoons on porcelain
saucers, the contented purr of a brass kettle,
and the subdued hum of conversation, all of
which are to the tea-table what the somnolent
[143]

Far From The Maddening Girls

murmur of bees is to a lazy, hazy, summer
afternoon. The physicians will tell you that
human vitality is at its lowest in the small
hours of the morning, but it has been my ex-
perience that the principle of celibacy reaches
its ebb about five in the afternoon.

The sensation was no novelty to me, and I
was on my guard against it as Miss Berrith
touched a match to the wick of the alcohol
lamp. I had taken the most uncomfortable
chair in the room, and was resolved to limit
myself to one cup of tea. I was finishing my
second when the conversation shifted sudden-
ly from the forest fires in the North and the
floods in the West to the subject of Darius
Doane.

"Don't you find him improved ?" Inquired
Miss Berrith.

Here was the very chance for which I had
been angling, but somehow it slipped off my
hook before I could get it into the boat.

"I suspect," I said with miserable weak-
[144 ]

Far From The Maddening Girls

ness, "that at present I am better satisfied
with him than he with me. It wasn't a very
admirable performance on my part to dis-
charge him, I'm afraid; and, while he has
probably forgiven it, the chances are against
his having forgotten. In some ways I'm
rather a despicable character. Miss Berrith."
Now, that was about as insensate a remark
as I could possibly have made, and I cannot
imagine what led me to say anything so idiotic
unless it was the second cup of tea. The
words had no sooner left my lips than I was
seized with a profound sense of disgust. Here
it was, the same old story — an autumn after-
noon, drawing on to twilight; such a "cozy
corner" as now comes, complete and ready-
made, in any department store, at a maxi-
mum cost of thirteen dollars and a half; tea;
a girl; a ridiculous appearance of intimacy
which did not exist — and I was beginning to
maunder like a Sophomore in a hammock.
Bah!

1145]

Far From The Maddening Girls

"You see, I've never had a girl friend," I
added, by way of topping the obelisk of silli-
ness with the capstone of fatuity. It was only
a step now to something about the refining in-
fluence of woman, the pitiable loneliness of
the bachelor, affinity, platonic affection, and
the rest of it. I felt that I could have bitten off
my tongue-tip. Instead, I ate a sweet cake,
which went promptly to my head, and there
installed itself in the vacuum which I had
fondly imagined was occupied by something
remotely resembling a brain.

It was curious that Miss Berrith made no
reply. She was bending solicitously over the
flame of the alcohol lamp (there was nothing
whatever the matter with it) and her hair
looked uncommonly fluffy. The sweet cake
which was performing the process of cerebra-
tion for me suggested that I rather liked it
that way. After all, there was something
about her . . .

I looked down at my teacup. It was full for
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Far From The Maddening Girls

the third time. I have not the faintest remem-
brance of how it came to be so.

"Sometimes," I continued, heavily, "I feel
that I have made a mistake. Perhaps I should
have been more of a success as a married
man."

Miss Berrith looked up with a little laugh.

"Oh, no!" she exclaimed. "Oh dear, no,
Mr. Sands!"

I put my teacup on the table. It was empty
again — ^^for all the world like something out of
"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" — but I
was too much irritated to give it more than
passing notice. It was not that I had any de-
sire to test my fitness for the part I had
suggested — nothing was further from my
thoughts— but it is not flattering to have one's
incapacity in any direction taken as a matter
of course.

"I don't see why you should say that so
positively," I replied. " I have the ordinary de-
gree of intelligence, somewhat more than my
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Far From The Maddening Girls

share of health, sufficient means, and a not
unamiable disposition. I don't know how we
happened to enter upon this discussion, which,
in view of my opinions, is certainly somewhat
purposeless; but, since you have raised the
question, Miss Berrith, I am bound to say
that I see no reason why I should not make a
very tolerable kind of husband."

Miss Berrith coolly looked me over, as I
was speaking, with the most exasperating
little smile, and then slowly shook her head.

"There are insuperable objections," said
she.

" What, for example ?" 1 demanded.

"We won't discuss them," replied Miss
Berrith easily. "As you say, this line of con-
versation is somewhat purposeless."

I have already explained that the object of
these notes is, for my future reference, to
summarize the details of my conduct as fully
and fairly as in me lies, and therefore I shall
make no effort at this point to gloss over the
[148]

Far From The Maddening Girls

astounding precipitancy of my next move. I
have dwelt enough upon the demoraUzing
effect of afternoon tea to estabHsh the hy-
pothesis that I could not have been wholly, or
even in part, responsible.

In secondary parenthesis, 1 may say that I
was from infancy a child who would never
take a dare. On more occasions than I could
now enumerate I have wet my feet, or rent my
clothes asunder, or barked my shins against
an insurmountable precipice, in the unique at-
tempt to cram an imputation of my cowar-
dice down the throat of a companion. This
spirit survived my arrival at maturity. For
example, I no more had a reasonable cause
for plunging into the morass or up the steeps
of matrimony than I had had for braving the
infinitely less perilous swamps and precipices
of my boyhood, but the suggestion that it was
beyond my power to do so was enough.

"Miss Berrith," said I, "there is a side to
my character which you have never seen — a
[149]

Far From The Maddening Girls

tender side, a considerate side, a side which is
calculated to insure any woman's happiness.
I have not the ardour of a youthful lover, but
I have something better — the sobriety of com-
mon-sense and the experience of a man of the
world. I have a home to offer, and an affec-
tion which, if not impetuous, is stable and en-
during. I am persuaded that my life is in-
complete, and I make bold to suggest that
yours is, also. I am not a vain man, but I
think I can promise to make you happy. I
have the honour and the pleasure" — and I
bowed — "of asking you to become my wife."

With incredible promptitude Miss Berrith
replied :

"And I, Mr. Sands, have the honour and
the regret of declining your very flattering
offer."

" You refuse me!" I exclaimed.

"Unqualifiedly!" said she, and — for no
reason whatever — stamped with her foot up-
on the polished floor. v
[ 150 ]

YOU REFUSE ME:* I EXCLAIMED

Far From The Maddening Girls

A moment later I was in the open air with
two perceptions, distinct and yet related,
dominating all others in my mind. I had been
rejected— that was the lesser of them. I had
escaped ! — that was the greater.

With what depth of gratitude I returned to
" Sans Souci " I shall not attempt to say.
Around me the autumn day was luxuriously
yawning and preparing to retire. A great
peace and sense of sanity pervaded all the
woodland, through which the road wound for
a level mile toward my home. After the
warm, close air of the Berrith's tea-room, that
which now struck against my face was incom-
parably fresh and invigorating. It spoke with
an appealing eloquence of a wide and wind-
swept liberty of the birds and forest beasts;
the liberty of the sea and the western breeze;
deliberately which I had striven for, had
gained, had wantonly imperilled, and which
was still mine — though I had not myself to
thank for that. I felt like a man — as in-
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Far From The Maddening Girls

deed I was — who has been for a moment in
mortal peril and finds himseK miraculously
saved.

I fancy that I am not unique in my famil-
iarity with a curious but not infrequent ex-
perience. I mean that of falling at night into
a tranquil slumber, at peace with myself and
the world and with a conscience like a glass
of distilled water, only to awaken, two or
three hours later, to the pitch blackness of
a room unearthly still, and a painful im-
pression that the total value of life would
be amply represented by a three-cent piece.
As Master Morpheus took his seat upon my
bedside that night our talk was all of the
happy escape I had had; but when, close
upon midnight, his place was taken by Mis-
tress Insomnia, I opened my eyes upon a
very different set of sensations. Of course it
was the tea; but if it had been, instead, the
knowledge that I had lost my uttermost far-
thing in the stock market, I could not have
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Far From The Maddening Girls

been more lamentably depressed. The thought
of Miss Berrith hung upon the outskirts of
this desert of dejection like the mirage of
some fair oasis, and the whole history of
"Sans Souci," as I looked back upon it,
seemed an arid waste, in which my hopes,
my plans, my opinions, and my performances,
stood out as grotesquely as forms of cacti
against a stretch of sand. Then a line from
Hamlet incongruously popped out of noth-
ingness into my mind:

" This is the very ecstasy of love."

Love, indeed! As if I did not know the
symptoms of an indigestion!

If Galvin had made my bed with the ex-
press intention of rendering me as uncomfort-
able as possible, the result of her endeavours
could not have been a more unqualified suc-
cess. I tossed restlessly for a small eternity,
and, with every movement, the memory of the
previous afternoon turned over in my mind,
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Far From The Maddening Girls

kicked, as I did, furiously at its bedclothes,
sought a cool place on its pillow, twitched,
turned again, dozed for a moment, and awoke
with a start, more desperately uneasy than
before.

I rose as the first gray of dawn touched my
window and groped about for the matches.
As I did so, something slipped off my table to
the floor, and, upon striking a light, I found
it was a dinner-card, preserved as a memento
of a recent festivity in town. It was a ridicu-
lous affair, designed by the youngest daugh-
ter of the hostess, and represented an ana-
tomically impossible gentleman in the act
of bounding nimbly into something which
resembled an ill-constructed bird's nest. Be-
low, in gilt paint, were my name and these
lines :

" There was a man in our town

And he was wondrous wise;
He jumped into a bramble-bush

And scratched out both his eyes :
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Far From The Maddening Girls

And when he found his eyes were out.
With all his might and main

He jumped into that bramble-bush
And scratched them in again."

I remembered that, when I had found this
beside my place at table, I thought it the most
meaningless thing in the world; but, for that
matter, there is no record of King Belshazzar
having immediately seen the point of the
writing on the wall. Now the significance of
the doggerel was as clear as crystal. I was the
man. The confirmed estate of bachelorhood
was the bramble-bush. My unpractised man-
ner of jumping into the latter, at first, had
naturally led me to scratch my eyes out over
a silly semblance of a love-affair. Well, I was
the wiser for the experience, and the same
thing would not be apt to happen a second
time. I could jump back into my bramble-
bush with the certainty of recovering my for-
mer point of view. I replaced the prophetic
tl55]

Far From The Maddening Girls

card upon my table, turned in, and slept like
a top till noon.

My first act, on arising, was to write a
handsome note of apology to Miss Berrith. I
did not preserve a copy, but it was something
like this :

" My Deak Miss Bereith:

" I shall not attempt to explain the access
of folly which prompted me to the extravagant
exhibition of yesterday afternoon. It was like
a baby crying for the moon, for which, even
in the event of his obtaining it, he could have
no possible use. I think you will be glad to
know that I have learned a very salutary les-
son, for which I thank you. You will, I am
sure, agree with me in thinking that any but
the most formal relations between us in future
could only prove embarrassing to both. I beg
that you will forgive and forget. Pray have
no regret for your action. If you have tram-
pled upon me it was for my good.
" Very truly yours,

" John Endicott Sands."
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Far From The Maddening Girls

This I dispatched by the hand of Darius,
and in the course of half an hour he returned
with Miss Berrith's answer.

" Dear Mr. Sands:

" Yes, let bygones be bygones. Your simile
of the baby and the moon seems to fit the case
to a nicety, and suggests to me that the lum-
inary in question, having as much as she can
attend to with the tide, had best leave the un-
tied alone in the solitude which he craves.
Did I 'trample' on you ? I'm sorry, but I'm
glad it did you good.

" ' Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints in the Sands ! '

"And so, good-bye. " Susie Berrith."

It was a bright note enough, but I thought
it heartless.

So I am ready to conclude. My absurd
proposal for the hand of Miss Berrith is not

[157]

Far From The Maddening Girls

two weeks old, but she has passed out of my
hfe completely. Since our interchange of let-
ters we have met but once, and then only to
pass each other with a formal bow. As I re-
view the foregoing pages, there is only one
thing which I should like to change. Coming
to think of it, I imagine it is unlikely that she
has ever deliberately thrown herself at my
head.

As I close, the rake of Darius is rasping on
the gravel outside, and in the distance, at the
wash-tub, Galvin is wailing "Bonnie Dun-
dee" in adagio time. But these are trifles,
and "Sans Souci" was never more deserving
of the name.

The chronicle is complete. It only remains
to seal up these pages for future reperusal.
But, as a last word, I will venture a prophecy.
It is that, at whatever date I shall read this
record through once more, it will only be to
lay it aside, finally and forever, with the iden-
tical conviction which is at present in my
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Far From The Maddening Girls

mind — that, far from being in any sense a
pathetic figure, I am by all odds the most for-
tunate person of my acquaintance. For I
have found the secret of a peaceful and con-
tented life in divining the sole condition under
which such a thing is humanly obtainable.
Need I say that this is to be far from the
maddening girls ?

[159]

CHAPTER SIX

"At length, after many unsuccessful efforts
to surmount the wall. Master Reynard turned
away.

'"I had never much of a fancy for grapes,'
said he, ' and, moreover, these grapes are far
from ripe."'

He was several kinds of a humbug, was the
fabulist's fox, but not, among them, of that
most unconscionable variety which puts down
such remarks as the above in writing. The
distinction is one, which, however reluctantly
I say it, I cannot claim for myself. For the
entire history of "Sans Souci," as it appears
in the foregoing pages, seems to me to be
nothing more than an elaboration of Master
Reynard's casuistry.

There will have been, incidental to the
[160]

Far From The Maddening Girls

childhood of us all, certain odds and ends of
costume which lent a vivid colour to such roles
of our assumption as Kidd or Crusoe. We
will not have seen these properties for years ;
but in our memories they stand out, against
the background of the merely commonplace,
as the insignia of a pomp and circumstance
which has retained something of its ingenu-
ous splendour through all the sordid course
of later experience. In them arrayed, we paced
the decks of pirate ships, were cast ashore
on cannibal-infested isles, and trod in battle,
blood, and booty, beyond the imaginings of a
Stevenson or a Poe. Surely, it is not strange
that, in our fancy, the accessories to these
enchantments should be as eloquent to-day
as in our first decade.

But there comes the day when the fond de-
lusion crumbles about our ears to piteous
ruin. We have found, in some long-closed
chest, these props to infant imagery, and,
with that sudden contraction of heart which
[161]

Far From The Maddening Girls

is peculiar to unexpected contact with the
past, recognize them for what they are — some
yards of scarlet cloth, scraps of tinsel and gold
embroidery, a pair or two of tarnished epau-
lets, a sword without a scabbard, a dozen
mock orders from some cotillon long since
danced and done with — the playthings of
the dwarfs we were. Ah me, how potent once
they were! Now, all the most fanciful of us
can do is pay them that trifling tribute. Their
usefulness, even their charm, is gone forever.
They are such stuff as dreams are made of,
invalid, tawdry, and small, small, small, in-
comparably small !

But this is the work of years. It is only the
children of our brains — ideas, ideals, opinions
— which change so pitifully in a few short
weeks that we may not even regard them with
that tender regret wherewith we view the pan-
oply of infancy, but instinctively draw back,
and, if conscience did not stand sternly spon-
sor for them, would deny them for our own.
[162]

Far From The Maddening Girls

Far from the maddening girls!

Six weeks have passed since, with easy com-
placency, I closed the foregoing pages with
those words, and to-day, for all the pride I
have in them, they might be only hideous
changelings in the cradle of my manuscript.
But let them lie. Poor things, it is all they can
do now !

In what manner the scales fell from my eyes
I cannot pretend to say. It was a miracle like
a bird's first flight, sunrise, or the opening of
a rose. The soul of me drew away, and stared
with amazed contempt at the little shell of
sophistry in which it had been imprisoned.
The flimsy edifice of bachelor philosophy
came toppling down like any house of cards :
and all I have here written of "Sans Souci"
turned in a moment to the veriest trash. It
was the work of a night; of the night, indeed,
which followed the day on which I closed
these notes.

But from the day, almost from the hour,
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Far From The Maddening Girls

when I received Miss Berrith's letter of fare-
well, I took no further pleasure in my celibacy
or my home. Any attempt to do so, even in
my own mind, I knew to be pure bravado. In
the first place, "Sans Souci" was ridiculously
large. As I sat in a corner of my den, occupy-
ing some twelve cubic feet of space, the long
corridor and the other rooms reproached me
with their superfluity of accommodation. As
a boy, it had been my opinion that I could
never have a sufficiency of watermelon. I still
remember, with a sense of loathing, the occa-
sion when I matched my appetite against a
whole one. To this day, I view that fruit with
an emotion akin to that which the sight of his
monster must have inspired in the breast of
Frankenstein, an emotion which now return-
ed to me as I contemplated the too ample
proportions of "Sans Souci." In the homely
phrase, I had bitten off more than I could
chew.

Again, I saw in my position an analogy to
[164 ]

Far From The Maddening Girls

that of the despicable drone in the busy hive.
Darius, with his shoe-brushes and his rake,
Galvin at her wash-tub, the tradesmen who
came and went — these were the workers. All
I was good for was to eat and buzz compla-
cently over the advantages of celibacy. But,
at a certain point in the history of the hive,
the exasperated workers fall upon the drones
and hustle them unceremoniously out of
doors. Did I deserve a better fate .''

Most of all, I was lonely ; with such a lone-
liness as I cannot endeavour to describe.
Struggle as I would against it, the remem-
brance forced itself upon me of the hours I
had spent in Miss Berrith's company, of her
quick wit, of her breezy candour, of the cheer-
ful love of life and the gentle womanly sym-
pathy which I now saw only too clearly had
illumined all her moods, and which I had so
pitifully failed to understand. Little by little,
a realization of what this mental attitude must
signify forced itself upon my comprehension.
[165]

Far From The Maddening Girls

I shied at the word itself Uke a horse at some-
thing seen dimly in the dark, but it was not to
be denied. Letter by letter, it mastered me,
as if I had been a child playing with alpha-
betical blocks, until I came to know its form
and meaning in something after the following
manner :

L is for Loneliness, hitter and blue;

That, sir, is what is the matter with you.
O is for One, and, experience taught of,

Now you can see that is all you have thought

of.
V is for Vanity. You have your share:

Yes, and a generous portion to spare.
E is for Egotist. Proof there is ample

That you ueednH look far if youWe seeking

a sample.

Each letter thus taught me a humiliating
lesson, but when I came to string them to-
gether I learned the greatest lesson of all.

Yes, I was in love. I had as soon looked to
[166]

Far From The Maddening Girls

find that confession in these pages as to re-
ceive Leviathan in the living-room of "Sans
Souci" ; but once the fact had established itself
in my conviction, it remained there, as immov-
able as Plymouth Rock.

It was as if some one — Dan Cupid, for pref-
erence — had dropped a bomb into the peace-
ful hamlet of my philosophy. The roofs which
sheltered my pet notions flew in flinders, and
the notions themselves rushed screaming into
the streets, rending their garments and calling
upon Heaven to pardon them their sins. The
municipal authorities, Messrs. Obstinacy,
Selfishness, Conceit, and Company, resigned
their ofllces upon the spot, and Major-Gener-
al Humility put the town under martial law.

This matter of love is a singular thing
enough, as experienced by a man. First of all,
it bowls over his confidence, the very quality
of which he would seem to be in the most ur-
gent need; and then, in a manner nothing
short of gross, turns its attention to demoral-
[167]

Far From The Maddening Girls

izing his purely material faculties. My appe-
tite vanished like the flame of a candle under
a wet sponge; and as for any desire for sleep,
I would have made the most efficient night-
watchman in existence. I did not fall into the
dismal custom of writing verse ; and the isola-
tion of my life secured me against the crowning
folly of discoursing to my friends on the key
of tit- willow and alackaday; but in all other
respects I suppose mine was as typical a case
of love-sickness as you would be apt to find.

Your practised poultryman will tell you
which eggs will hatch and which will not, and
it is probably by some such occult faculty as
this that the average woman is able to detect
the incubation of the tender passion. As I
look back, I perceive that Galvin must have
been fully aware of my condition, and that
she encouraged it to the full extent of her abil-
ity, though at the time I could think of no
reason for the persistent manner in which she
forced the subject of matrimony upon my at-
[168]

Far From The Maddening Girls

tention. Almost daily now, she brought up for
my consideration some domestic problem
which clearly called for the exercise of femi-
nine judgment, and then, after watching me
with a kind of pity as I wrestled with it, she
would retire, with a hint, more or less gentle,
as to the ease with which such reefs and shal-
lows were passed around or over, when a mis-
tress held the domestic helm. I was called up-
on for an opinion as to the advisability of
using kerosene upon the dining-table ; I was
expected to give a verdict in favour of one or
another of a dozen washing preparations; I
had to sit in judgment upon the respective
merits of tar-paper and camphor as a preser-
vative of winter clothes ; I was asked to deter-
mine whether or not the washerwoman had
employed an acid on my shirts, whether
chamois-skin or cheese-cloth was best for the
piano, whether an egg-shell improved the
coffee, and a host of similar whethers-or-not,
which might as readily have been rebuses in
[169]

Far From The Maddening Girls

Sanskrit for all the impression they conveyed
to my mind.

" I can't abide to trouble you," the Machia-
vellian Galvin would observe. "If you was a
married man, Mr. Sands, there'd be no need
— but of course — "

And the door would close upon this incom-
plete, yet eloquent, remark, leaving me, each
time, more shaken in my resolution than before.
The Galvin octagon was complete at last, and
its eighth side was match-manuf actural !

Thus beset, exteriorly by a subtle system of
suggestion ever crescent in its effect, and in-
teriorly by an obsession which I had even less
will than power to control, I saw, more and
more clearly, what the inevitable outcome of
my plight must be. Already the currents had
swept my bark into the rapids. The roar of the
cataract was in my ears. It remained to be
seen in what manner I should contrive to pass
it; whether triumphantly, to emerge presently
upon the serener waters of married life, or
[170]

Far From The Maddening Girls

disastrously, and, as on the former occasion,
swamped by pitiless waves of rejection and
contempt.

At this point the main thread of my re-
flections was snapped by the inopportune de-
fection of Darius. At first I did not realize
the extent of my catastrophe, but viewed his
failure to appear, not only on one morning,
but on three mornings following, in the light
of an opportunity. The weather had been wet,
and I know not which was most in need, my
shoes of blacking, or my grass of mowing.
Plainly, it was my duty to undertake both
tasks, and I girded myseK for the dual ordeal
with an idea that I was about to establish a
precedent of efficiency by which it should be
the difficult duty of Darius to shape his sub-
sequent performances.

I had never tried a lawn-mower before. I

think I never shall again. There is something

in one of our minor poets about "the drops of

dew which cling, impearled, tenacious, to the

[171]

Far From The Maddening Girls

grass." I am like Lady Teazle, in a position
to show that " there is not one syllable of truth
in what the gentleman has told you." Drops
of dew do not cling, tenacious, to the grass.
On the contrary, they vanish, surreptitiously,
between the clippers of the lawn-mower, abide
briefly in the mechanism thereof, climb un-
knowably up the handle, percolate with in-
credible celerity through the human system,
and presently emerge, as large as life and twice
as significant, upon the human brow. I had
not mowed twenty square feet of lawn before
I was filled with a vast sense of respect for the
prowess of Darius Doane. Nothing could
have induced me to drive that Juggernaut
another foot.

But if this was the lesson taught me by the
lawn-mower, how much greater was the moral
imparted by the shoe-brushes and the black-
ing. I do not remember ever having tested my
ability in this direction before. A vague im-
pression of the tactics employed by certain
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Far From The Maddening Girls

Tuscan gentlemen on city street-corners was
all I had to go by. Their first act is to knock
the backs of the brushes together. I did that.
The crowning feature of the ceremony is to
lean over, with your mouth wide open, an inch
from the shoe, and then say "Ha-a-a-a-a!"
as you do when the doctor has the handle of
the teaspoon down your throat, looking for
tonsilitis. I did that. Between the two, I
brushed with unexampled energy, and for
one brief moment saw my efforts crowned
with triumph. A tiny spot of brilliance ap-
peared on the extreme tip of one shoe, and
then abruptly vanished. That was the sole
symptom of success. I laboured for full an
hour longer, without inducing anything more
than a sulky dullness, and then I gave it up.
Not that I was to blame. If the stove-polish
had been kept in a proper place, there would
have been no chance of my confusing it with
the blacking.

If it was with an added respect for the ser-
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Far From The Maddening Girls

vices of Darius that I emerged from this ex-
perience, it was, as well, with a multiplied need
of them. But nearly a week elapsed before his
absence was explained by the following letter
from his mother:

"Dear Sir:

" Darius is layed up with a Decease which
is Information of the Longs is very woorit for
fear you will not kep his Job for him tole him
You would Doctor says not in danjer and will
be able to resum Work in abt ten Days.
" Respetfully yours

"Agatha Doane."

That afternoon I set off to make a call up-
on Darius.

We were well into November, but some-
thing remained of the warm languor of Indian
summer which was in alluring contrast to the
wonted bleakness of the month. The leaves
had clung to their places with a singular te-
nacity, and, perhaps for this very cause, were
more vividly and variably coloured than I had
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Far From The Maddening Girls

ever seen them. A blue haze from brush-fires
somewhere in the distance filtered through
the woods, blurring the vistas to an appear-
ance of being slightly out of focus which
charmed the eye with an incomparable soft-
ness, and stinging the nostrils not unpleasant-
ly with its acrid pungency. Spring is the sea-
son of silence. She stands tip-toed and finger
on lip, breathlessly awaiting the miracle of
resurrection. But autumn is all haste and
anxious preparation against the threatening
peril of the snows. This floor of dry leaves,
levelly laid, and polished, each of them, as if
their surfaces had been of fawn lacquer, was
the canopy over an infinity of unseen and
intermingling thoroughfares, through which
the tiny denizens of the world of under-foot
scuttled nimbly about their affairs, unappar-
ent to my coarser perception, save in that, as
I stood still, news of their activities came to
me in the form of the faintest imaginable rus-
tle. Larger, though no less timid, creatures
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sped away at my approach, across this crack-
hng carpet— squirrels, sitting up at a safe dis-
tance to survey me, with their forepaws held
coquettishly against their breasts: rabbits,
pausing for a single glance at the intruder,
and then whipping out of sight among the
brush: partridges, rushing for a few paces
over the leaves, and then whirring upward
like rising rockets.

I have said intruder, for such, as I walked, I
felt myself to be. I cannot particularize the
sense of isolation which touched me, further
than to say that in a world of activity and
varied interest I alone was idle and ill-content.
I can only hope that the feeling is one which
others have shared, for there is no describing
or explaining it. It comes upon you out of
nothingness, and presently is gone again, un-
satisfied. For the life of you you cannot tell
what thing it is you crave, but more than life
you crave it!

Albeit I had started with a definite end in
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view, this so alluring afternoon had tempted
me more than once from the direct way, so
that I had taken small notice of my actual
progress, until, coming suddenly out upon the
road again after my fourth or fifth deflection,
I found myself almost opposite the Berrith
house. Miss Susie Berrith, in a smart little
walking costume, indescribably taking by
reason of its brisk masculine note, was coming
down the path. We were face to face before
either could catch a breath. She would have
passed me with a bow, but I stopped her.

"We seem to be going the same way," said
I, and after she had given me some little for-
mal expression of acquiescence we fell in step.

"I don't know what you will have been
thinking of me," I ventured to observe, and
vastly envied the ease of her laugh as she re-
plied :

" Are you sure I have been thinking of you
at all.?"

"Oh, Miss Berrith," I exclaimed, "I think
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I am the most blundering, the most inept, the
most selfish, and the most inconsiderate of
men! I wish I could convey to you an ade-
quate sense of the humiliation with which I
look back upon almost every detail of our
acquaintance. If I had seen a man treating
a dog with the brutality of which I have been
guilty to you, I think I should have sailed in
and thrashed him, if only to satisfy my sense
of decency."

"Please don't, Mr. Sands," said she. "I—
I think I understand."

"It isn't only that," I continued obstinate-
ly. "It's the knowledge that my lamentable
blindness, my crass ignorance, and my utter
stupidity, have put forever out of my reach the
only thing in the world which — "

I might have expected the result. Miss
Berrith drew away, crossing to the other side
of the road.

"Please, Mr. Sands!" she repeated. "There
can be no use in this, no use at all, and such a
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discussion must be as painful to you as it sure-
ly is to me."

"Then I am right?" I persisted. "I have
thrown away my chance?"

Miss Berrith made no reply.

" Isn't that the plain truth of it ? " I asked.

"You force me into being so unpleasant as
to say it is," she answered. "I am sorry to
hurt your feelings, but — but women are not
won that way, Mr. Sands. You did not like
it when I once said I thought you were pathet-
ic, but that is how you seemed to me. You
have been doing your best all along to rub
the bloom off life for yourself, and turn your
back upon the essence of it, and in the attempt
it would be strange if you did not rush in to
some places where angels fear to tread. That
you were all alone, and endeavouring to make
a few cut-and-dried opinions on the advan-
tages of celibacy take the place of all the
greatest and most beautiful realities of life —
wasn't that pathetic? I was very far from
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wanting to marry you, Mr. Sands, but had I
been ever so anxious, the manner of your offer
would have cured me. What was it you brought
to me ? Was it a poor, weak-kneed imitation
of a manly avowal, or was it the strong, un-
selfish love of a good man for a good woman }
Oh, you have yet to learn that in all the world
there is nothing greater than that — "

"Except," I interposed, "the love of a wo-
man for a man. That is infinitely greater, so
much greater, indeed, that, where the other is
only a miracle, this is a worker of miracles.
It pardons him his faults and, in pardoning,
often cures them."

Then there was silence between us, until we
came to the first houses of the town. Here
Miss Berrith paused upon a corner.

"Now I must leave you," she said. "I am
going to see Darius."

" Why, bless my soul ! " I exclaimed, " so am
I ! I had forgotten all about it. Do you mind
if I come with you .^"

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" I shall be glad," she answered simply, and
we went on again.

Mrs. Doane met us at the door. She was
a stout, shapeless woman, who would have
been ridiculous if she had not been crying.
The most singular little pang I have ever
experienced went through me at sight of her
strained, blue eyes, even now shining full of
tears.

"Oh, dear heart. Miss Berrith," she began
at once, after a little bow to me, "the boy's
that sick! The doctor says — oh. Miss Ber-
rith, dear — "

Miss Berrith seemed to understand the
whole matter from these few words. She went
directly to Mrs. Doane, and put her arms
around her, and her lips against her cheek,
and spoke to her as if the poor creature had
been a frightened child.

" There — there — there — there.

It was the most gentle, the most tactful, and
the most touching thing, that ever even a
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woman did, and the beauty of it swelled in my
throat like a sob.

"Last night he turned worse," said Mrs.
Doane, "and talked that wild! It was all
about you, Miss Berrith, dear — about you
and Mr. Sands — gettin' married. Ain't it fun-
ny he should have his heart set on a thing like
that ? But he has."

I caught my breath, looking for a protest
from Miss Berrith, but, to my amazement,
she did not seem to have heard the words at
all. She only held Mrs. Doane closer, and
continued her little soothing murmur.

Then I found myself mechanically following
them to the sick-room, and, a moment later,
at the bedside of Darius, with the solemnity
upon me that even a hint of death inspires.

In the midst of the large, old-fashioned
four-poster, the boy looked as little as a baby.
His face was very white and drawn, and his
eyes were closed. On a low chair at his side
was seated the village doctor, with his fingers
[182]

WENT DIRECTLY TO MRS. DOANE, AND PUT HEF
ARMS AROUND HER

Far From The Maddening Girls

on the thin wrist which lay outside the cover-
let. He looked up as we entered, nodded to
Miss Berrith, and at once turned his eyes
back to Darius. This suggestion of acute at-
tention was, to my way of thinking, more elo-
quent than any form of words.

And Darius — oh, Darius!

Every act and every word of his flashed
back upon me, as I saw him lying there, so
thin and small — the unspeakable mouth-
organ, the disarming smile, the lines of "The
Skeleton in Armor," the sound of his rake
upon the gravel and of his briskly-plied
brushes in the cellar underneath my den, the
morning of his coming, that of his dismissal,
that of his return. Oh, happy, chattering,
rattle-pated, little, dear Darius ! Was this, in-
deed, the Valley of the Shadow ?

Slowly his eyes unclosed, and then, as they
rested on the face of Susie Berrith, the ghost
of his old smile woke upon his lips, and he
sighed, with the essence of content.
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"Miss Berrit'," he said in a whisper Hke an
elf's, "an' Mist' San's. Den I wasn't deream-
in'. Y' are a-goin' to git marrit, after orl?"

As the words left his lips, the doctor looked
straight across at Susie Berrith, and sharply
nodded !

There was the briefest imaginable pause,
and then the girl bent down and kissed Darius
on the lips.

"Yes, Darius," she answered steadily.
"Yes, dear, I am going to marry Mr. Sands ! "

"God bless you!" said the dofctor softly.

He knew it was a lie!

As we waited outside the house for his ver-
dict, I could no more have spoken to her than
to the Madonna upon an altar. When, at
last, he came to us with word that the boy
would live, we turned home together, still in
silence.

The air had gone suddenly chill and su-
premely clear. The gold of the declining sun
splashed through the openings between the
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trees, and fell in a marvellous mosaic on the
windings of the familiar road. The world was
as still as some vast chapel.

"I love you more than the very breath of
life itself," said I, as steadily as I could for the
beating of my heart. " Will you marry me ?"

She turned sharply at the words, with her
head thrown back and her cheeks blazing.

" Oh, is that kind .?" she cried. " Is it fair?
Is it possible you didn't understand what it
might have meant to have given him a differ-
ent answer.'' And you would take advantage

— oh, shame! You would take advantage of

— of my lie!"

"Oh, my dearest," I broke in, "it was too
beautiful to be a lie. It was truth for Darius.
Will you not make it truth for me ?"

And I held out my arms to her.

:{: ^ :{: ^; :{:

A hundred and ninety years later, or seven
minutes — I forget which — I made a confess-
ion.

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"I should tell you," said I, "that I have
been so silly as to write down all my idiotic
ideas on housekeeping, celibacy, matrimony,
and the like, in the form of a sort of story. I
shall add one more chapter — this chapter,
dearest — just by way of salving my con-
science, and then commit the whole rigmarole
to the flames which it deserves."

She could not forget to contradict me — the
witch !

"On the contrary," said she, "you will add
your one more chapter, and then get the editor
of a discriminating periodical to publish the
whole affair for you. Don't you see, John.''
It may be the means of showing other con-
firmed bachelors the perils of darkest celi-
bacy."

"And the way out!" said I.

I wonder if it will.

THE END

THE MoCLURE PRESS, NEW YOB

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