A COMPOSITE WIFE.

Press, Volume XLIX, Issue 8349, 7 December 1892, Page 2

A COMPOSITE WIFE.

'" Marian I Could you really endure the thought of marrying tiat man, for one instant f '-What an idiot I should be if I couldn't .'> Honor looked at her a moment, largeeyed and silent. "Marian Marcyl" she cried then. " You i 'hall I You shall marry Mr Chipperley, you shameless dear l" " How Btrangely fate moves,'' said Honor to her mother a little later. "Here is Marian Marcy, pale and drab, just like all the women he naturally prefers, wearing pale and drab gowns, thinking pale and drab thoughts, doing pale and drab things —exactly tne one Mr Chipperley ought to marry—she would melt into that composite wife of his without a wrinkle. And here he is possessed to marry one who sets all his ideals at defiance, whose whims and ways will eventually drive him mad, whose colours will startle him blind, who will be aa much a blight on his life as strong sun on tender grass." "I never heard such indelicate and Improper remarks from a young girl's mouth before. Marian think of marrying Mr Chipperley when he has not asked her 1" "My goodness J Oh, my goodness I" cried Honor, teeth and eyes flashing out of that brown face In one dazzle of light along with her ringing laugh. "Oh 1" s,he cried, running from the room, " if I die the next minute I shall have, had my share of satisfaction I I mean to make Marian do the one thing in her life that shall be neither pale uor drab I" But if Marian was a timid and conventional person in the main she had more than once proved herself capable of rising to the occasion, and certainly she was doing something unusual and daring when uninvited she took Ted Dane's arm one night as be stood, rather dark and down of face, leaning against a window, and walked with him iuto Mrs Roberts's orchid house.' " Ob, there is Honor," she said, as they paused where a swarm of rosy flowerbutterflies fluttered in their faces. "Is it not wicked that suchi a girl should be hi ii ff I " Should be sold 1" said Ted, suddenly beaming on her, with his blue eyes shining and his manner for the first time showing, as he bent from his lofty height, that here was an unexpectedly delightful person in that Humphreys family. "' It is infamous I" " I dare say he would make a very good husband." " He ought. He has had enough experience in the line." " Then I should think he'd see how very unfit she is." "Unfit? For that beggar! No, no; Chlpperley's a good fellow—but there's no one good enough for her." "At auy rate she doesn't love him." " She doesn't? Look at her then!" gazing at Honor down a vista, where she stood graciously extending her .hand like some young queen with Mr Chipperley bending over it like some seigneur swearing fealty. "Very well. They are obliging ner. It isn't worth while for her to quarrel with a man on whom she may be forced to rely for all the happiness she can have." " Forced 1 Who can force her ?" "Father, mother, a whole household. And break her heart." "Hasshe any heart?' biting his moustache as if he meant it any injury, " Heart ? Honor Humphreys 1 Shewell, you are the last person to deny it I" "I? What have Ito do with it! *' " Oh, certainly—if you have been meaning nothing "—frightened into the propriety she had forsaken in her desire to help both Honor and heraelf. '•Meaningnothing? I? What do you mean ?" exclaimed Ted, suddenly facing her. " You know lam meaning something! You know Hove Honor with all my heart and soul 1 You know I would spend my life . for her 1 You know I haven't a dollar in the world—" "I know she loves yon, whether you have a dollar in the world or not 1" Aad the next instant Ted Dane, in a thoughtless, breathless ecstasy, had clasped Marian to hia heart for oue swift second. Oh such an avowal it was impossible not to embrace someone. "Oh, Marian," he said, "you are the best friend a man ever had." "No. no, not" she gasped, pink with her blushes. " What do you do, such a thing for? Oh, I am sure Mr Chipperley saw you." "What if he did? What do I care for Chipperley? Oh, Marian you have made mc the happiest man In the world I" And Mr Chipperley, whom some dancing fellow had robbed of Honor, saw the act and beard the words, as he came down the .orchard house, and noticed for the first time that Marlon Marcy, in her misty toilet of lavender satin and tulle, was really a most attractive person and most becomingly dressed. He knew that Marian had little or nothing of her own except her mother's jewels, and that it was owing to Honor's determined insistence that ahe had everything as if she were a daughter of the house, aud it only made Honor seem more charming still. How well that young woman would spend a big income, with what generousness, what nobility 1 As for Ted, when Honor had finished that dance he was awaiting her. And what took place out in the grand hall where two people sat on the pedestal of the Psycho and Eros group, in the broad glare of the candles, one opening and shutting her fan, the other leaning toward her eagerly and takitig the fan Into his own hands at last, all the world might see, but only two of all the world might know. " It is time," said old Gen. Humphreys to his daughter, a week, perhaps, after that night, " that Mr Chipperley had a definite answer. He is very impatient. Your mother thinks that your conduct iis fast becoming scandalous." And he cleared his throat and straightened his collar in preparation for the fray. " Yes, fast becoming scandalous." ".She will think ie Is quite scandalous before I am through, I fear." "I can't imagine your objection to a man of Mi* Chlpperley's worth ——" " Oh, he is worth too much." "This Is not an occasion for trifling, Honor." .' . ** Well, then, the chief objection Is that I preier someone clae," said Honor, carelessly swinging her lorgnon. "Someone else I" and the eyebrows like epaulets lifted themselves and fell again ominously. " Yes. I presume that at least my preferences are my own." " May I ask who this someone ia ?" " How can I hinder your asking, papa ? " " Let mc know tbe name at once l " It la Theodore Dane." " Great heavens {" oried the General. "A fellow with nothing but a pedigree I A man of family withjut a penny, a lawyer without a brief, an idle, dancing, driving, shiftless-—" "I wouldn't talk so, papa, aboat • man to whom you may by and by stand In the relation of a father/ Said Hopor calmly. "Never! The day yoa married that fellow yoa would cense to be my daughter!" . y " Nonsense, papa; yoa 'are just like my mastiff 1 Old Proodfootts bark is very much worse than his bite. How can I ever cease being your d.ughterf" And . then ahe had her arm about the old hero's neck. " You know very well, papsy, you would never wish to mike your dear unhappy."

" No, certainly, no; of coarse not, no, disengaging himself. "And that Is the very reason I wish yoa to marry a man Suite suitable io himself, and who can inulge all your extravagant testes and hinder yoa by and by* from the unhappinesa of feelrg your mother and your sisters deprived of all their gratifications on my death." *

} "How absurd,'papa. A a tu >*■***. j going to die i ifc*. Werti™JJS« W Haleaod hearty and a father and mother that thclr father and mJffi W| wont listen to such talk I *._*"". ! worse came to worse, mamm- B<i !*>i It others could live with us. & Jil 4 tig home of some sort-" c Bjml * hi** "Shall?" * •' Yes, we shall live la an n w _ Ted's in the country- aa M._■?"• «* river—quite a place once~- a _/I__s 0a » lovely gardens. He will com! to his office every day, and" .fifr?*"* asparagus. vail -"tun •"•You, Honor l" he groaned n know what you are saying! _■ t-, ~*"°*. and dried?" ' S "Ib »Ucat •" Yes, papa," she said, and __•_!« , the movement to imprison him n„ t THumphreys caught her in time ««;•*?* fe'&'is*-**- '* nyh ' lOOtS - «-*S w;; iv ?&'f'is„'_!'-""-» «•*•-. *' You know I can't blush nana, v mc to a .» k * I C4a tUrn PUri> - o ' l * y°« *S_ *' I've as good a mind as ever I j» B .i» eat to call in a justice of the p._s_i,S marry you out of hand." p * v " c aß^ dore 1 / 1811 y ° U W ° Uld '" 9he Cried '" *-to** But as he released her she Hunt? herseii upon his breast. " Papa, papa I" shSl 1 " You must help mc 1 1 love Ted- w* that old Mormon 1 And oh-letS „__„,*'_ you would find it suchfun totSKfffis ,Qf mamma-and you remember the £ , ferae she worked on you when you wwS. T9e Pay to marry Kate Appletou and .h. arranged It all for Henrietta yon Iru^ " I don't know what that has to do *Ift this case. Your mother has much _£ best sense of all of us. De Put's hV. turned out a very comfortable mawC if he is a little hen-pecked. Youra-Z.*^ • , l 0h _ p . p .'_' l Bha " sl, »Ply throw ro.jj.ii m front of the train if you make mc JZ Mr Chipperley 1 I should like to ban some identity of my own. Juac think „ my being a band of sisters with th__ three poor ghosts hovering round old Chi*. perleyl And as the ghosts did not .m?, to move her father she had resort to th* last argument—tears. "There, there, there," aaid her f s t_,» " You know very well that I abhor i«___ I—l will confess that I had just as U<f_s your mother see that I had a wUlofat own as not. But the tact is, you v\\m a pauper. And I can't think of that.** •' I told you, papa, that we—that fa has a house. It will be the mami pleasure In the world to makeit !_&bitay» And you've no idea how profitable a? «J paragus beds are going to be." , - " Honor 1" " Oh, we have figured it ali out It*.» delightful old place. Maddy and I »*_» out to see it." ' " Maddy—there's another thing, Vfhsl is to become of Marian, an well as al] Mm rest, if you persist in the course V "Why shouldn't Marian marry M. Chipperley, papa, and keop the mom* lithe family ! " Simply because he doesn't want he*?** "He does. She is just and exactli- i_§ very thing he wants. Only he doWi know it yet. He will find it OhW* foj Marian is precisely the sweet, qtjy nun that would make him feel as it it wen all a bad dream that he had ever had m other wife—as if they were all nothing ba| different phases of one woman. Ha is bs. juggled with mc just now, but oh, he would so regret it In a little; my oaowf ruby colours would drive him wild, &nt\h« wouldn't live a year with all the e_»c* tions and exasperations that I should bring to him. Can't yoa reason with Ulol papsy ? " "I could reason with him 8 great dei" better than I could with your mother," •* Well, we won't try to reauoa Willi mamma, I've heard you say many a tiros that she never would hoar r.&iea, Q| course you know, darling, I'm no! dob; anything imprudent. Ted Is only waiting for Mr Lorton to come home tohavs his appointment as attorney to the Creamer? Trust with a salary of ten thousaud. year; and a family that can't live on tea thousand a .ear ought to starve. And be. sides, that Is only a beginning. Whet, people see what Ted is the big can.. wUi comein, and we shall have an income te astonish you. That ought to contest mamma. And It isn't as If Helen a_4 Teresa wouldn't marry. Now Papa H_»< phreys, you are an old soldier; yoa a-ms. mc Honor because Honor was the deamt thing on earth to you. And I'm not pii_ to ask you to do a living thing contrary ts your principles, only to take mamma o«. little journey, to Washington or to "**.**» Orleans —- anywhere. You press thai button and I'll do the rest," And tt-.Trw at the end of a delightful half hour thai Mrs Humyhreya found Honor sitting ot her father a knees, all smiles, aad c.tui and tangles.