"He wouldn't avail himself of it if I did," said Mrs. Upton. "He wants to drown—and I fancy Molly wants him to, too, because I can't get her to mention his name any more."
"Is that a sign?" asked Upton.
"Indeed yes; if she talked about him all the time I should be afraid she wasn't quite as deeply in love as I want her to be. She's only a woman, you know, Henry. If she were a man, it would be different."
The indications were verified by the results. August came, and Mrs. Upton invited Miss Meeker to spend the month at the Uptons' summer cottage at Skirton, and Bliss was asked up for "a day or two" while she was there.
"Isn't it a little dangerous, my dear?" Upton asked, when his wife asked him to extend the hospitality of the cottage to Bliss. "I should think twice before asking Walter to come."
"How absurd you are!" retorted the match-maker. "What earthly objection can there be?"
"No objection at all," returned Upton, "but it may destroy all your good work. It will be a terrible test for Walter, I am afraid—breakfast, for instance, is a fearful ordeal for most men. They are so apt to be at their very worst at breakfast, and it might happen that Walter could not stand the strain upon him through a series of them. Then Molly may not look well in the mornings. How is that? Is she like you—always at her best?"
Mrs. Upton replied with a smile. It was evident that she did not consider the danger very great.
"They might as well get used to seeing each other at breakfast," she said. "If they find they don't admire each other at that time, it is just as well they should know it in advance."
Hence it was, as I have said, that Bliss was invited to Skirton for a day or two. And the day or two, in the most natural way in the world, lengthened out into a week or two. There were walks and talks; there were drives and long horseback rides along shaded mountain roads, and when it rained there were mornings in the music-room together. Bliss was good-natured at breakfast, and Molly developed a capacity for appearing to advantage at that trying meal that aroused Upton's highest regard; and finally—well, finally Miss Molly Meeker whispered something into Mrs. Upton's ear, at which the latter was so overjoyed that she nearly hugged her young friend to death.