The Tinder-Box

by Maria Thompson Daviess

"I'm glad to be at home," I said, gazing straight into his eyes, with a look of affection that you would have been proud of, Jane,—using unconsciously, until after I had done it, the warmth I had tried unsuccessfully on Richard Hall at the Astor, not forty-eight hours ago, but two thousand miles away. And it got a response that puzzles me to think of yet. It was just a look, but there was a thought of Father in it, also a suggestion of the glance he bestowed on Sallie's twins. I remembered that the Crag seldom speaks, and that's what makes you spend your time breathlessly listening to him.

"Well, come on, everybody, let's go home and undress, and forget about the wedding," came in Henrietta's positive and executive tones. "Let's go and take the strange lady with us. We can have company if we can't be it. She can sleep other side of me, next the wall."

I have never met anybody else at all like Henrietta Carruthers, and I never shall unless Jane Mathers marries and—I sincerely hope that some day she and Jane will meet.

And the next ten minutes was one of the most strenuous periods of time I ever put in, in all my life. I longed, really longed, to go home with Sallie and Henrietta, and sleep next the wall at Widegables with the rest of the Crag's collection. But I knew Glendale well enough to see plainly that if I thus once give myself up to the conventions that by Saturday night they would have me nicely settled with his relicts, or in my home with probably two elderly widows and a maiden cousin or so to look after me. And then, by the end of the next week, they would have the most suitable person in town fairly hunted by both spoken and mental influence, to the moonlight end of my front porch, with matrimonial intentions in his pocket. I knew I had to take a positive stand, and take it immediately. I must be masculinely firm. No feminine wiles would serve in such a crisis as this.

So, I let Cousin James pack me into his low, prehistoric old surrey, in the front seat, at his side, while Sallie took Aunt Dilsie and one twin with her on the back seat. Henrietta scrouged down at my feet, and I fearingly, but accommodatingly, accepted the other twin. It was a perfect kitten of a baby, and purred itself to sleep against my shoulder as soon as anchored.

The half-mile from the station, along the dusty, quiet village streets, was accomplished in about the time it would take a modern vehicle to traverse Manhattan lengthwise, and at last we stopped at the gate of Widegables. The rambling, winged, wide-gabled, tall-columned old pile of time-grayed brick and stone, sat back in the moonlight, in its tangle of a garden, under its tall roof maples, with a dignity that went straight to my heart. There is nothing better in France or England, and I feel sure that there are not two hundred houses in America as good. I'll paint it, just like I saw it to-night, for next Spring's Salon. A bright light shone from the windows of the dining-room in the left wing, where the col lection of clinging vines were taking supper, unconscious of the return of the left-behinds that threatened.

And as I glanced at my own tall-pillared, dark old house, that stands just opposite Widegables, and is of the same period and style, I knew that if I did not escape into its emptiness before I got into Cousin Martha's comfortable arms, surrounded by the rest of the Crag's family, I would never have the courage to enter into the estate of freedom I had planned.

"Sallie," I said firmly, as I handed the limp Kitten down to Aunt Dilsie, as Henrietta took the other one—"Puppy" I suppose I will have to call the young animal,—from her mother and started on up the walk in the lead of the return expedition, "I am going over to stay in my own home to-night. I know it seems strange, but—I must. Please don't worry about me."

"Why, dear, you can't stay by yourself, with no man on the place," exclaimed Sallie, in a tone of absolute panic. "I'll go tell Cousin Martha you are here, while Cousin James unpacks your satchel and things." And she hurried in her descent from the ark, and also hurried in her quest for the reinforcement of Cousin Martha's authority.

"I'm going to escape before any of them come back," I said determinedly to the Crag, who stood there still, just looking at me. "I'm not up to arguing the question to-night, for the trip has been a long one, and this is the first time I have been home since—Just let me have to-night to myself, please." I found myself pleading to him, as he held up his arms to lift me clear of the wheels.