widders and designin' old maids about. Of course," she added, with a return of her natural suspicion, "you are old enough to be father to the whole bunch, which keeps people from talkin'."

Whether it was Prudence's approbation or my own inclination I cannot say, but it soon came about that I was on paternally familiar terms with the entire neighborhood of maidens of reasonably tender years, and a very important factor in young feminine councils. These artful creatures knew exactly when their favorite[Pg 10] roses were in bloom, exactly when the cherries back of the house were ripe, exactly when it was time to go to town for another theatre party, to give a picnic up the river, or a small and informal dance in the parlors. I was expected to remember and observe all birthdays, to be a well-spring of benevolence at Christmas, and a free and never-failing florist at Easter. I was the recipient of all young griefs and troubles, and no girl ever committed herself unconditionally to the arms of her lover until she had talked the matter over with Uncle John. All this, to a good-looking man of—well, considerably over forty, was flattering, but no sinecure.

[Pg 10]

One morning, in the late spring, it came over me unhappily that in a moment of fatal forgetfulness I had promised to be present that evening at a card-party—a promise exacted by the "Rogers woman," persona non grata to Prudence. A card-party was to me in the category with battle and murder and sudden death, from[Pg 11] which we all petition to be delivered in the book of common prayer—but how to be delivered? I could not be called suddenly to town, for I had already run that excuse to its full limit. I could not conveniently start for Europe on an hour's notice. The plea of sickness I dismissed as feminine and unworthy. And while I sat debating to what extreme I could tax my over-burdened conscience, Malachy appeared with the information that he had discovered unmistakable signs of cutworms in the rose-bushes, and that the local custodians of the trees were thundering against an impending epidemic of brown-tailed moth. Surely my path of duty led to the garden. But that card-party? No, let the cutworm work his will, and let the brown-tailed moth corrupt; I must take refuge in flight, however inglorious. It was then that the good angel, who never forsakes a well-meaning man, whispered to me that far back in a quiet corner of New England was the little village where I had passed my boyhood, which I had[Pg 12] deserted for five and twenty years, but which still remembered me as "Johnny" Stanhope, thanks to the officious longevity of the editor of the 

 Prev. P 5/56 next