University of Virginia Library

43. CHAPTER XLIII.
A MIDNIGHT CAUCUS OVER THE COALS.

“NOW, do n't you girls sit up and talk all night,”
said Harry from the staircase, as he started
bedward, after Jim Fellows had departed, and the
house-door was locked for the night.

Now, Eva was one of that class of household birds
whose eyes grow wider awake and brighter as the small
hours of the night approach; and, just this night, she
felt herself swelling with a world of that distinctively
feminine talk which women keep for each other, when
the lordly part of creation are out of sight and hearing.
Harry, who worked hard in his office all day and came
home tired at night, and who had the inevitable next
day's work ever before him, was always an advocate for
early and regular hours, and regarded these sisterly
night-watches with suspicion.

“You know, now, Eva, that you oughtn't to sit up
late. You're not strong,” he preached from the stair-case
in warning tones, as he slowly ascended.

“Oh, no, dear; we won't be long. We've just got a
few things to talk over.”

“Well, you know you never know what time it is.”

“Oh, never you mind, Harry; you'll be asleep in ten
minutes. I want to talk with Ally.”

“There, now, he's off,” said Eva, gleefully shutting
the door and drawing an easy chair to the remains of the
fire, while she disposed the little unburned brands and
ends so as to make a last blaze; then, leaning back, she
began taking out hair-pins and shaking down curls and

untying ribbons, as a sort of preface to a wholly free and
easy conversation. “I think, Ally,” she said, with an air
of profound reflection, “if I were you, I should wear my
white tarletan to-morrow night, with cherry-colored
trimming, and cherry velvet in your hair. You see that
altering the trimming changes the whole effect, so that it
will look exactly like a new dress.”

“I was thinking of doing something with the tarletan,”
said Alice, who had also taken out her hair-pins and
let down her long dark masses of hair around her handsome
oval face, while her great dark eyes were studying
the coals abstractedly. It was quite evident by the deep
intense gaze she fixed before her that it was not the
tarletan or the trimmings that at that moment occupied
her mind, but something deeper.

Eva saw and suspected, and went on designedly:

“How nice and lucky it was that Jim came in just as
he did.”

“Yes, it was lucky,” repeated Alice, abstractedly,
taking off her neck-scarf, and folding and smoothing it
with an unnecessary amount of precision.

“Jim is such a nice fellow,” said Eva. “I am thoroughly
delighted that he has got that situation. It is
really quite a position for him.”

“Yes, Jim is doing very well,” said Alice, with a certain
uneasy motion.

“I really think,” pursued Eva, “that your friendship
has been everything to Jim. We all notice how much he
has improved.”

“It's only that we know him better,” said Alice.
“Jim always was a nice fellow; but it takes a very intimate
acquaintance to get at the real earnest nature there
is under all his nonsense. But after all, Eva, I'm a little
afraid of trouble in that friendship.”

“Trouble—how?” said Eva, with the most innocent

[ILLUSTRATION]

A MIDNIGHT CAUCUS.
"'There, now he's off,' said Eva. . . then, leaning back, she
began taking out hair-pins and shaking down curls and untying
ribbons as a preface to a wholly free conversation."—p. 400.

[Description: 710EAF. Illustration page. Image of two women sitting relaxed. One woman is taking pins out of her hair while she chats.]

air in the world, as if she did not feel perfectly sure of
what was coming next.

“Well, I do think, and I always have said, that an
intimate friendship between a lady and a gentleman is
just the best thing for both parties.”

“Well, is n't it?” said Eva.

“Well, yes. But the difficulty is, it won't stay. It
will get to be something more than you want, and that
makes a trouble. Now, did you notice Jim's manner to
me to-night?”

“Well, I thought I saw something rather suspicious,”
said Eva, demurely; “but then you always have been
so sure that there was nothing, and was to be nothing,
in that quarter.”

“Well, I never have meant there should be. I have
been perfectly honorable and above-board with Jim;
treated him just like a sister, and I thought there was
the most perfect understanding between us.”

“Well, you see, darling,” said Eva, “I've sometimes
thought whether it was quite fair to let any one be so
very intimate with one, unless one were willing to take
the consequences, in case his feelings should become
deeply involved. Now, we should have thought it a bad
thing for Mr. St. John to go on cultivating an intimate
friendship with Angie, if he never meant to marry. It
would be taking from her feelings and affections that
might be given to some one who would make her happy
for life; and I think some women, I don't mean you, of
course, but some women I have seen and heard of, like
to absorb all the feeling and devotion a man has without
in the least intending to marry him. They keep him
from being interested in any one else who might make
him a happy home, and won't have him themselves.”

“Eva, you are too hard,” said Alice.

“Understand me, dear; I said I didn't mean you, for

I think your course has been perfectly honorable and
honest so far; but I do think you have got to a place
that needs care. It's my positive belief that Jim not
only loves you, Alice, but that he is in love with you
in a way that will have the most serious effect on his life
and character.”

“Oh, dear me, that's just what I've been fearing,”
said Alice, “is n't it too bad? I really do n't think it's
my fault. Do you know, Eva, I came here meaning to
go home to-night, and I stayed only because I was afraid
to walk home with Jim. I was sure if I did there would
be a crisis of some kind.”

“For my part, Ally,” said Eva, “I'm not so very sure
that there has n't been some advance in your feelings, as
well as in Jim's. I don't see why you should set it
down among the impossibles that you should marry Jim
Fellows.”

“Oh! well,” said Alice, “I like—yes, I really love
Jim very much; he is very agreeable to me, always. I
know nobody, on the whole, more so; but then, Eva,
he's not at all the sort of man I have ever thought of as
possible for me to marry. Oh! not at all,” and Alice
gazed before her into the coals, as if she saw her hero
through them.

“And what sort of a man is this phenix?”

“Oh! something grave, and deep, and high, and
heroic.”

Eva gave a light, little shrug to her shoulders, and
rippled a laugh. “And when you have got such a man,
you will have to ask him to go to market for beef and
cranberry sauce. You will have to get him to match
your worsted, and carry your parcels, and talk over with
him about how to cure the chimney of smoking and
make the kitchen range draw. Don't you think a hero
will be a rather cumbersome help in housekeeping?

Besides, your heroes like to sit on pedestals and have
you worship them. Now, for my part, I'd rather have a
good kind man that will worship me.
A man like Harry, for instance. Harry isn't a hero;
he's a good, true, noble-hearted boy, though, and I'd
rather have him than the angel Gabriel, if I could choose
now. I don't see what's to object to in Jim, if you
like him and love him, as you say. He's handsome;
he's lively and cheerful; he's kind-hearted and obliging;
and he's certainly true and constant in his affections:
and now he has a good position, and one where he can
do a good work in the world, and your influence might
help him in it.”

“Why, Eva, you seem to be pleading for him like a
lawyer,” said Alice, apparently not at all displeased to
hear that side of the question discussed.

“Well, really,” said Eva, “I do think it would be a
nice thing for us all if you could like Jim, for he's one
of us; we all know him and like him, and he would n't
take you away to the ends of the earth; you might settle
right down here, and live near us, and all go on together
cosily. Jim is just the fellow to make a bright, pleasant,
hospitable home; and he's certain to be a devoted husband
to whomever he marries.”

“Jim ought to be married, certainly,” said Alice, in
a reflective tone. “Just the right kind of a marriage
would be the making of him.”

“Well, look over the girls you know, and see if there's
any one that you would like to have Jim marry.”

“I know,” said Alice, with a quickened flush of
color, “that there is n't a girl he cares a snap of his
finger for.”

“There's Jane Stuyvesant.”

“Oh, nonsense! don't mention Jane Stuyvesant!”

“Well, she's rich, and brilliant, and very gracious to
Jim.”

“Well, I happen to know just how much that
amounts to. Jim never would have a serious thought
of Jane Stuyvesant—that I'm certain of. She's a perfectly
frivolous girl, and he knows it.”

“I've thought sometimes he was quite attentive to
one of those Stephenson girls, at Aunt Maria's.”

“What, Sophia Stephenson! You could n't have got
more out of the way. Why, no! Why, she's nothing
but a breathing wax doll; that's all there is to her. Jim
never could care for her.”

“Well, what was it about that Miss Du Hare?”

“Oh, nothing at all, except that she was a dashing,
flirting young thing that took a fancy to Jim and invited
him to her opera box, and of course Jim went. The fact
is, Jim is good-looking and lively and gay, and will go a
certain way with any nice girl. He likes to have a jolly,
good time; but he has his own thoughts about them all,
as I happen to know. There is n't one of these that he
has a serious thought of.”

“Well, then, darling, since nobody else will suit him,
and it's for his soul's health and wealth to be married,
I don't see but you ought to undertake him yourself.”

Alice smiled thoughtfully, and twisted her sash into
various bows, in an abstracted manner.

“You see,” continued Eva, “that it would be altogether
improper for you to enact the fable of the dog in
the manger—neither take him yourself nor let any one
else have him.”

“Oh, as to that,” said Alice, flushing up, “he has my
free consent to take anybody else he wants to; only I
know there is n't anybody he does want.”

“Except—” said Eva.

“Well, except present company,” said Alice. “I'll
tell you, Eva, if anything could incline me more to such
a decision, it's the way Aunt Maria has talked about Jim
to me—setting him down as if he was the last and most
improbable parti I could choose; and as if, of course, I
never could even think of him. I don't see what right
she has to think so, when there are girls a great deal
richer and standing higher in fashionable society than I
do that would have Jim in a minute, if they could get
him. Jim is constantly beset with more invitations to
parties and to go into society than he can at all meet,
and I know there are plenty that would be glad enough
to take him.”

“Oh, but Aunt Maria has moderated a good deal as
to Jim, lately,” said Eva. “She told me herself, the
other day, that he really was one of the most gentlemanly,
agreeable young fellows she knew of, and said
what a pity it was he hadn't a fortune.”

“Oh, that witch of a creature!” said Alice, laughing.
“He has been just amusing himself with getting round
Aunt Maria.”

“And I dare say,” said Eva, “that, if she finds Jim
has a really good position, she might at last come to a
state of resignation. I will say that for Aunt Maria, that
after fighting you for a while she comes round handsomely—when
she is certain that fighting is in vain; but
the most amusing thing is to see how she has come down
about Mr. St. John's ritualism. Think of her actually
going up there to church last Sunday, and not saying a
word about the candles, or the chantings, or any of the
abominations! She only remarked that she was sure she
never heard a better Gospel sermon than Mr. St. John
preached—which was true enough. Harry and I were
so amused we could hardly keep our faces straight; but
we said not a word to remind her of past denunciations.”

“The danger of going to Rome is sensibly abated, it
appears,” said Alice.

“Oh, yes. I believe Aunt Maria must be cherishing
distant visions of a time when she shall be aunt to Mr.
St. John, and set him all straight.”

“She'll have her match for once,” said Alice, “if she
has any such intentions.”

“One thing is a comfort,” said Eva. “Aunt Maria
has her hands so full, getting up Angie's trousseau, and
buying her sheets and towels and table-cloths, and tearing
all about, up stairs and down, and through dark
alleys, to get everything of the very best at the smallest
expense, that her nervous energies are all used up, and
there is less left to be expended on you and me. A wedding
in the family is a godsend to us all.”

The conversation here branched off into an animated
discussion of some points in Angie's wedding-dress, and
went on with an increasing interest till it was interrupted
by a dolorous voice from the top of the entry
staircase.

“Girls, have you the least idea what time it is?”

“Why, there's Harry, to be sure,” said Eva. “Dear
me, Alice, what time is it?”

“Half-past one! Mercy on us! is n't it a shame?”

“Coming, Harry, coming this minute,” called Eva, as
the two sisters began turning down the gas and raking
up the fire; then, gathering together collars, hair-pains,
ribbons, sashes and scarfs, they flew up the stairway, and
parted with a suppressed titter of guilty consciousness.

“It was abominable of us,” said Eva; “but I never
looked at the clock.”