The Late Mrs. Null

by Frank R. Stockton

"Not much of that," she said, "but I have been told often enough that
I'm a regular old matchmaker, and I expect I am."

"If you make this match," said Lawrence, "you will have my eternal gratitude."

The supper sent out to Lawrence was a very good one, and the anticipation of what was to follow made him enjoy it still more, for his passion had now reached such a point that even to look at his love, although he could only speak to her of trumps and of tricks, would be a refreshing solace which would go down deep into his thirsty soul.

But bedtime and old Isham came, and the whist players came not. It needed no one to tell Lawrence whose disinclination it was that had prevented their coming.

"I reckon," said Uncle Isham, as he looked in at Letty's cabin on his way to his own, "dat dat ar Mister Crof' aint much use to gittin' hisse'f hurt. All de time I was helpin' him to go to bed he was a growlin' like de bery debbil."

CHAPTER XX.

Although October in Southern Virginia can generally be counted upon as a very charming month, it must not be expected that her face will wear one continuous smile. On the day after Lawrence Croft's misadventure the sky was gray with low-hanging clouds, there was a disagreeable wind from the north-east, and the air was filled with the slight drizzle of rain. The morning was so cool that Lawrence was obliged to keep his door shut, and Uncle Isham had made him a small wood fire on the hearth. As he sat before this fire, after breakfast, his foot still upon a stool, and vigorously puffed at a cigar, he said to himself that it mattered very little to him whether the sun shone, or all the rains of heaven descended, so long as Roberta March would not come out to him; and that she did not intend to come, rain or shine, was just as plain as the marks on the sides of the fireplace, probably made by the heels of Mr Junius Keswick during many a long, reflective smoke.

On second thoughts, however, Lawrence concluded that a rainy day was worse for his prospects than a bright one. If the sun shone, and everything was fair, Miss March might come across the grassy yard and might possibly stop before his open door to bid him good morning, and to tell him that she was sorry that a headache had prevented her from coming to play whist the evening before. But this last, he presently admitted, was rather too much to expect, for he did not think she was subject to headaches, or to making excuses. At any rate he might have caught sight of her, and if he had, he certainly would have called to her, and would have had his say with her, even had she persisted in standing six feet from the door-step. But now this dreary day had shut his door and put an interdict upon strolls across the grass. Therefore it was that he must resign any opportunity, for that day, at least, of soothing the harrowing perturbations of his passion by either the comforting warmth of hope, or by the deadening frigidity of a consummated despair. This last, in truth, he did not expect, but still, if it came, it would be better than perturbations; they must be soothed at any cost. But how to incur this cost was a difficult question altogether. So, puffing, gazing into the fire, and knitting his brows, he sat and thought.

As a good-looking young man, as a well-dressed young man, as an educated and cultured man, as a man of the clubs, and of society, and, when occasion required, as a very sensible man of business, Mr Croft might be looked upon as essentially a commonplace personage, and in our walks abroad we meet a great many like him. But there dwelt within him a certain disposition, which, at times, removed him to quite a distance from the arena in which commonplace people go through their prescribed performances. He would come to a determination, generally quite suddenly, to attain a desired end in his own way, without any reference to traditionary or conventional methods; and the more original and startling these plans the better he liked it.

This disposition it was which made Lawrence read with so much interest the account of the defeated general who made the cavalry charge into the camp of his victorious enemy. Defeat had been his, all through his short campaign, and it now seemed that the time had come to make another bold effort to get the better of his bad luck. As he could not woo Miss March himself, he must get some one else to do it for him, or, if not actually to woo the lady, to get her at least into such a frame of mind that she would allow him to woo her, even in spite of his present disadvantages. This would be a very bold stroke, but Lawrence put a good deal of faith in it.