CHAPTER XVII.
MR. AND MRS. BISHOP BECOME MEMBERS OF A DRAMATIC CLUB—CROQUETTES OVER AGAIN—WHERE THE MISTAKE LAY—WHITE SOUP.
Harry and Molly had talked over the matter of the dramatic club, and whether they could afford to join it. Molly was old enough, not being a school-girl bride—did I ever mention that she was twenty-four?—and had seen enough of the world to know that, although a woman’s ideal of married life may be to sew in the evening, while her husband reads to her, or, if he is weary, to read to him while he rests, a man very often prefers something more exhilarating. Although Harry had never seemed bored by a tête-a-tête evening, she remembered that he had never yet been subjected to the long uninterrupted quiet of country winter nights, and she wanted to run no risk of him finding their life humdrum. He was not a reader in the true sense of the word,—that is to say, he read for amusement’s sake. If the book he read was not to his mind, he threw it aside, or fell asleep over it, and he was not so fond of reading aloud as Molly could have wished. However, this was one of the little disappointments most women, and some men, have to put up with, and she was thankful there was nothing worse. It is true that, finding Harry cared less for reading than herself, she had devoted herself to chess, of which he was very fond, and their evenings seldom passed without having the men out; but Harry was too much in sympathy with his wife not to know that chess, to her, was a sort of loving pleasure, and had often pretended disinclination; therefore the prospect of a weekly social meeting and the many little entertainments that would grow out of it was, for Harry’s sake, a pleasant one.
“What are the actual expenses?” she had asked.
“I don’t know, but from what Framley said, I imagine these are merely nominal, outside the entertaining of the club, which falls to every one’s share once in the season.”
“Yet as we are so limited in money matters, we can run no risks; what would be nominal to people with double our income may be serious for us. I think I had better wait and see Mrs. Framley.”
That lady called before Molly had been quite two weeks in Greenfield; she was very handsomely dressed, but of rather formal manners, which Molly came to know were natural to her, and rather a distress to herself. After the usual chat of a morning call Mrs. Framley said:—
“I believe Mr. Framley spoke to Mr. Bishop about our reading-society. Mr. and Mrs. Winfield were members, and as we limit the club to fifteen couples we thought it would be very pleasant if you and Mr. Bishop would take their places.”
Molly colored a little, hesitated, then said:—
“Will you please tell me the exact conditions and expenses?”
“Well, there are no particular conditions, except that no member is admitted that is not acceptable to all. Your names were proposed by Mr. Winfield and warmly welcomed; the expenses are nominal.”