Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 October 1884 — Miss MARTHA'S MATCHMAKING. [ARTICLE]

Miss MARTHA'S MATCHMAKING.

BY AUGUSTA AVONDALE.

“I declare to goodness, Robert,” Miss Martha said, rubbing her nose in a way peculiar to her, “I don’t know what you will do unless you get married yourself.” Robert Ackerman looked at his sister in mild remonstrance as he said gently: “Marry! 1! You forget, Martha!” Martha’s face softened. Under the daisies, in the village cemetery, slept a Wue-eyed girl who brad been betrothed to her brother eighteen long years be- ! fore, and died one week before the ■wedding day. “It is so long ago!” she said, apologetically. “Yes,” her brother said, sighing; “and lam too old to begin a new life. Thirty-eight in Dei-ember, Manila. ” “Well,” said Miss Martha, tartly, “I am live years older, and I intend to marry John Sanderson in three months. Now, Robert” —this very coaxingly—“there is Dorothy Gaines.” “Don't trouble yourself to pick out my wife, ” her brother said; “1 have no intention of marrying, and certainly no desire to marry Dorothy Games.” He left the breakfast-table abruptly as he spoke and went to his study. Miss Martha rubbed her nose vigor- i ously. “Men are so unreasonable," she thought; “Robert must have some one to keep house for him when I go. And Dorothy Gaines is the best housekeeper in Meadowville!” Theideaof Dorothy Gaines presiding over the china closets and linen chests that had been her life’s delight, until Cupid came to win away the old maid’s attention, became more and more 1 agreeable to Miss Martha as the morning wore away. “11l just give Dorothy a hint,” she finally concluded. “Anybodycan twist Robert around a finger if they half try.” It was a speech founded upon long experience, for Martha had ruled with 1 undisputed sway over her brother and his belongings for many long years. They were people of position in Meadowville. Their house was large, and well furnished in old-fashioned i style. With good servants, well trained i under her own severe discipline, ample i means, and a brother who never found ; fault, Martha’s housekeeping certainly ! had few thorns. But when she consented to become the wife of the curate of Mea lowville, the transfer of her power and privileges became a weighty burden. .But one solution seemed possible; her brother must marry some steady, middle-aged spinster, who would keep up the prim neatness and the hundred fussy details of Miss Martha’s domain. Miss Dorothy ,<iaines, a vinegar- faced, sharp-voiced woman of limited income, and unlimited energy and temper, proved to be smilingly willing to take Miss Martha’s hints in good part. Indeed, one word leading to another, they arranged trousseau and bridal tour before they separated. It had been - a very satisfactory afternoon to Miss Martha, and she came home to tea in a very placid state of mind. Her brother, after lunch, had found himself unequal to his usual afternoon’s re >dipg, and strolled down a shady lane in the direction of the church. Was it his sister’s suggestion that had so brought i back the sweet face of his betrothed to his memory that he sought her grave, for of late years he had not been very •often to the secluded corner where Alice Desmond slept, in the shade of a great oak tree. He walked slowly, musingly, his eyes on the ground, till he was dose to the grave. Then he looked up, and reeled back as if shot. Close to the grave, one little hand resting on the marble headstone, was a slender girl of seventeen or eighteen, dressed in pure white, with a wide straw hat that ehaded Alice’s great blue eyes, Alice’s long, fair curls. Robert Ackerman felt as if he had lost his reason. His voice was hoarse and strained as he said: “Who are yuu, child?” “I am Alice Desmond,” said a low, aweet voice. “It is the name on the atone here. That Alice Desmond was my aunt, who died when I was a baby. Papa thinks I look like her.” The explanation was given with childlike frankness and simplicity, and gradually the suffocating throbs of Robert’s heart became quiet, and his voice was natural and had its habitual gentleness as he said: “I knew your father well before he left Meadowville, and I knew your .aunt. You may have heard of Robert Ackerman?” “Who was to have married Aunt Alice?” “Yes, dear child. You are like her—▼ery much like her. Are you staying at Meadowville?” “Yes. I have been ill. Not very, ■very ill; but”—and she gave a little gleeful laugh—“the doctor says I must go to the country, and not "study so hard. So I am living with papa’s •cousin, Miss Dorothy Gaines.” “Ah, yes. Well, you must let me come to see you sometimes, for vour lather’s sake.”

“I shall be very glad to see you,” sai< Alice, f ankly, thinkng thin was th< handsomest gentleman she had evei seen. He had la ge, kindly, dark eyes, and a few silver threads mingled wit! the r >ven of his hair, brushed baei from a high, noble forehead; a mouth in which sternness was strangely min gle.l with sweetness, shaded by a dart mustache, apd when he smiled Alie< thought he was the best and nobles man in the world. He chatted with her a little while, and then walked with her to the gab of her cousin’s cottage, but would no! then go in. “I will come soon to see you,” he promised as he left her. But he said nothing to Martha about this new encounter, feeling that a sacred chord of memory had been touched, and shrinking from commonplace remarks upon it. The next day Miss Martha went to the city to attend to her wedding purchase, and to visit a relative. She left most minute directions with her servants for Robert’s comfort, and his heart was moved with a guilty sense of disloyalty. He was a man of sensitive refinement, a gentleman in the truest sense of the word; while his sister, without being vulgar, was what the Meadowvillians called a “stirring woman,” full of life and bustle, of overflowing energy, and an incessant talker. Miss Matha had been in the city but a few days when a letter from Meadowville filled her heart with elation. It was from Dorothy Gaines, and that spinster wrote: “Your brother comes over nearly every day. I suppose he’s a little lone? some while you are away, and he usually stays to tea. I’ve got a lodger this summer—a daughter of a cousin of mine in the city. She’s only a little girl, but she plays and sings, and your brother likes to hear her. He’s very attentive—sends fruit and flowers and brings books- though, between you and me, Martha, I’m no hand for books, nor ever was. Stiil, Philip’s little girl seems to like to read, and it keeps her out of mischief. Girls are always in mischief.” Every week there came a long, exultulting letter from Miss Gaines to her dear friend, Martha, until the time was drawing near for the elderly spinster’s wedding. All her wedding garments were made, marked, and neatly packed, when she received a letter from her brother: “Wait until Wedesday, and I will be your escort to Meadowville. “Robert.” This curt epistle had been written after a day of great moment to Robert Ackerman. He had gone quite early to the postoffiee, and returning passed the cottage of Miss Gaines. He somet mes loitered a little at this house to chat with the ladies as they trimmed the garden flowers, but on that day he p .used and caught his breath, as an excited voice rang out upon the air—the voice of Dorothy Gaines--saying: “You a e an impudent little brat, and I’ll send you home! How dare you set up to teach me how to treat mv husband?” A low, sweet voice answered:“You need not be so angry. Cousin Dorothy. I only said Robert Ackerman deserved a wife who loved him.” “Fiddle, saddle, love! You sentimental schoolgirls talk such arrant nonsense. Robert Ackerman is a mooning old bachelor, who wants a wife “to manage him and keep his house in order.” The sweet voice rang out more clearly: “Robert Ackerman is a noble, true gentleman, a man to love—a man to honor! And, if he marries, he wants a wife to love him—to make his life glad and happy.” “My good gracious!” gasped the astonished old maid.

“You think more this minute,” continued Alice,' “of Ins house, of his money, his carriage, and his table linen than you do of him. ” “Well, suppose I do, Perhaps you would like to marry him yourself?” “He would never think of such a thing; lam only an insignificant schoolgirl, to whom he is kind. But if I did marry him, it would be for love, and not for his money.” Hero the sweet but excised voice broke in a sob, and Alice fled from the battle-field. Robert Ackerman walked home slowly. For many weeks, ever since the meeting in the cemetery, he had felt as if his lost love, the hope of his youth, had been returned to him. Every hour’s intercourse with Alice brought back the long-buried dream of happiness more vividly. But he had crushed down all hope.

Never would he link that bright, just-dawning life with his sad, memoryhaunted one. But this morning’s experience gave him rew hope—a hope that made his breath come thick and fast, and his heart throb hopefully. He could not bear such suspense long, and in the afternoon he wandered to a spot in the woods where Alice had often brought her needlework, and where Miss Dorothy’s keen eyes had never penetrated; and there the two would sit and chat by the hour, of books, travel, etc. Alice was there, but she was pale and shy—had evidently been weeping. He thought he had never seen her look so beaut ful before. She had on a white muslin dress, looped up with blue ribbon; her long golden curls were simply tied back with a blue ribbon. A few Huffy curls rested on her pure white brow. She was evidently buried in deep thought, for she did not perceive him until he was close beside her. She rose like a startled fawn, and would have fled, but, gently taking her little trembling hands in his strong ones, he said: “Alice, my darling, I love vou; do not run away from me. I want you for my own little wife. Can you not love me a little?” “But,” faltered Alice, “I thought I understood you were to marry Cousin Dorothy?” “You are mistaken, dearest I do not care for Miss Gaines, nor have I ever asked her to be my wife. There is but one little woman in the world that I shall ever ask to oe my wife,” he said, tenderly. “I did not think you could care for me, I am only an insignificant schoolgirl,” said Alice. “Look in my eyes, my love, my dar-

1 ling, and see whether I care for you or 3 not ?” he said. * r Bhe raised her eyes shyly to his face, , but the passionate love she saw there i dazzled her, and she drooped them in c sweet confusion. Placing his arm i tenderly around her he drew her gently - to his bosom, and pressed passionate c kisses on her sweet, quivering lips and ) burning cheeks. After a few moments t of silent bLss, he sat down on the rustic I seat and drew her down beside him, , and gazing down fondlv into the sweet, > blue eyes raised to his, said: “You > have not said yet whether you would be I my wife or not?” i I “I cannot hnagine any greateishappil ness than to be your wife," said Alice. Miss Martha Ackerman was already to return home when her brother pre- ■ seated himself in the drawing-room of i the house where she was staying. He surveyed the ancient garments in which she had arrayed herself for traveling with such evident disgust that it awaked her indignant surprprise. “What are you looking at me in that i way for?” she asked sharply. “This dress is good enough to spoil with dust. Come to look at you, you are wonderfully spruced up yourself. Why, your suit is new—new gloves, too!” “I wish you to dress yonrself handsomely, Martha,” her brother said, quietly, “to attend my wedding!” “You can’t be married'till we get to Meadowville. Dorothy surely never came here with you.” “I told you some time ago, Martha, that I had no intention of marrying Miss Gaines. ” “Thpn who are you going to marry?” “Alice Desmond!” Miss Martha simply stared, with a creeping horror tHht her brother was going mad. “She is Philip Desmond’s daughter, my Alice’s niece!” “What are you talking about? Philip Desmond hasn’t been married, but ” “Twenty years. Alice is eighteen, just the age of my dead lore." Miss Martha had a soft place in her heart, hard as she seemed, and she had loved her brother’s betrothed in that long ago when they were all young. Her voice was very gentle as she asked, “Are you sure she loves you, Robert? She is very young.” “But she loves me, Martha; do not fear for my happiness, sister. ” And Miss Martha selected the richest costume in her trousseau to attend the wedding, and stopped on the way to the church to buy a gift for her little sister-in-law that proved her good-will, as well as her generocity. It was not until the party returned to Meadowville that Miss Gaines realized how vain a castle in the air she had built upon Miss Martha’s matchmaking.