wise, but not too much of either, if you value the verities
of your Vision. There! I say: do your worst! Make me that
face, and that face only, that you need the most in all
this big, lonesome world: food for your heart, or fragrance
for your nostrils. Only, one face or another-I insist upon
having red hair!
"MOLLY."
With his lower lip twisted oddly under the bite of his strong white teeth, Stanton began to unwrap the various packages that comprised the large bundle. If it was a "portrait" it certainly represented a puzzle-picture.
First there was a small, flat-footed scarlet slipper with a fluffy gold toe to it. Definitely feminine. Definitely small. So much for that! Then there was a sling-shot, ferociously stubby, and rather confusingly boyish. After that, round and flat and tantalizing as an empty plate, the phonograph disc of a totally unfamiliar song-"The Sea Gull's Cry": a clue surely to neither age nor sex, but indicative possibly of musical preference or mere individual temperament. After that, a tiny geographical globe, with Kipling's phrase-
"For to admire an' for to see,
For to be'old this world so wide-
It never done no good to me,
But I can't drop it if I tried!"-
written slantingly in very black ink across both hemispheres. Then an empty purse-with a hole in it; a silver-embroidered gauntlet such as horsemen wear on the Mexican frontier; a white table-doily partly embroidered with silky blue forget-me-nots-the threaded needle still jabbed in the work-and the small thimble, Stanton could have sworn, still warm from the snuggle of somebody's finger. Last of all, a fat and formidable edition of Robert Browning's poems; a tiny black domino-mask, such as masqueraders wear, and a shimmering gilt picture frame inclosing a pert yet not irreverent handmade adaptation of a certain portion of St. Paul's epistle to the Corinthians:
"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and
have not a Sense of Humor, I am become as sounding brass, or
a tinkling symbol. And though I have the gift of
Prophecy-and all knowledge-so that I could remove
Mountains, and have not a Sense of Humor, I am nothing. And
though I bestow all my Goods to feed the poor, and though I
give my body to be burned, and have not a Sense of Humor it
profiteth me nothing.
"A sense of Humor suffereth long, and is kind. A Sense of
Humor envieth not. A Sense of Humor vaunteth not itself-is
not puffed up. Doth not behave itself Unseemly, seeketh not
its own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil-Beareth
all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things,
endureth all things. A Sense of Humor never faileth. But
whether there be unpleasant prophecies they shall fail,
whether there be scolding tongues they shall cease, whether
there be unfortunate knowledge it shall vanish away. When I
was a fault-finding child I spake as a fault-finding child,
I understood as a fault-finding child,-but when I became a
woman I put away fault-finding things.
"And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three. But the
greatest of these is a sense of humor!"
With a little chuckle of amusement not altogether devoid of a very definite consciousness of being teased, Stanton spread all the articles out on the bed-spread before him and tried to piece them together like the fragments of any other jig-saw puzzle. Was the young lady as intellectual as the Robert Browning poems suggested, or did she mean simply to imply that she wished she were? And did the tom-boyish sling-shot fit by any possible chance with the dainty, feminine scrap of domestic embroidery? And was the empty purse supposed to be especially significant of an inordinate fondness for phonograph music-or what?
Pondering, puzzling, fretting, fussing, he dozed off to sleep at last before he even knew that it was almost morning. And when he finally woke again he found the Doctor laughing at him because he lay holding a scarlet slipper in his hand.
IV
The next night, very, very late, in a furious riot of wind and snow and sleet, a clerk from the drug-store just around the corner appeared with a perfectly huge hot-water bottle fairly sizzling and bubbling with warmth and relief for aching rheumatic backs.
"Well, where in thunder-?" groaned Stanton out of his cold and pain and misery.
"Search me!" said the drug clerk. "The order and the money for it came in the last mail this evening. 'Kindly deliver largest-sized hot-water bottle, boiling hot, to Mr. Carl Stanton,... 11.30 to-night.'"
"OO-w!" gasped Stanton. "O-u-c-h! G-e-e!" then, "Oh, I wish I could purr!" as he settled cautiously back at last to toast his pains against the blessed, scorching heat. "Most girls," he reasoned with surprising interest, "would have sent ice cold violets shrouded in tissue paper. Now, how does this special girl know-Oh, Ouch! O-u-c-h! O-u-c-h-i-t-y!" he crooned himself to sleep.
The next night just at supper-time a much-freckled messenger-boy appeared dragging an exceedingly obstreperous fox-terrier on the end of a dangerously frayed leash. Planting himself firmly on the rug in the middle of the room, with the faintest gleam of saucy pink tongue showing between his teeth, the little beast sat and defied the entire situation. Nothing apparently but the correspondence concerning the situation was actually transferable from the freckled messenger boy to Stanton himself.
"Oh, dear Lad," said the tiny note, "I forgot to tell you my
real name, didn't I!-Well, my last name and the dog's first
name are just the same. Funny, isn't it? (You'll find it in
the back of almost any dictionary.)
"With love,
"MOLLY.
"P. S. Just turn the puppy out in the morning and he'll go
home all right of his own accord."
With his own pink tongue showing just a trifle between his teeth, Stanton lay for a moment and watched the dog on the rug. Cocking his small, keen, white head from one tippy angle to another, the little terrier returned the stare with an expression that was altogether and unmistakably mirthful. "Oh, it's a jolly little beggar, isn't it?" said Stanton. "Come here, sir!" Only a suddenly pointed ear acknowledged the summons. The dog himself did not budge. "Come here, I say!" Stanton repeated with harsh peremptoriness. Palpably the little dog winked at him. Then in succession the little dog dodged adroitly a knife, a spoon, a copy of Browning's poems, and several other sizable articles from the table close to Stanton's elbow. Nothing but the dictionary seemed too big to throw. Finally with a grin that could not be disguised even from the dog, Stanton began to rummage with eye and hand through the intricate back pages of the dictionary.
[Illustration: A much-freckled messenger-boy appeared dragging an exceedingly obstreperous fox-terrier]
"You silly little fool," he said. "Won't you mind unless you are spoken to by name?"
"Aaron-Abidel-Abel-Abiathar-" he began to read out with petulant curiosity, "Baldwin-Barachias-Bruno (Oh, hang!) Cadwallader-Cæsar-Caleb (What nonsense!) Ephraim-Erasmus (How could a girl be named anything like that!) Gabriel-Gerard-Gershom (Imagine whistling a dog to the name of Gershom!) Hannibal-Hezekiah-Hosea (Oh, Hell!)" Stolidly with unheedful, drooping ears the little fox-terrier resumed his seat on the rug. "Ichabod-Jabez-Joab," Stanton's voice persisted, experimentally. By nine o'clock, in all possible variations of accent and intonation, he had quite completely exhausted the alphabetical list as far as "K." and the little dog was blinking himself to sleep on the far side of the room. Something about the dog's nodding contentment started Stanton's mouth to yawning and for almost an hour he lay in the lovely, restful consciousness of being at least half asleep. But at ten o'clock he roused up sharply and resumed the task at hand, which seemed suddenly to have assumed really vital importance. "Laban-Lorenzo-Marcellus," he began again in a loud, clear, compelling voice. "Meredith-" (Did the little dog stir? Did he sit up?) "Meredith? Meredith?" The little dog barked. Something in Stanton's brain flashed. "It is 'Merry' for the dog?" he quizzed. "Here, MERRY!" In another instant the little creature had leaped upon the foot of his bed, and was talking away at a great rate with all sorts of ecstatic grunts and growls. Stanton's hand went out almost shyly to the dog's head. "So it's 'Molly Meredith'," he mused. But after all there was no reason to be shy about it. It was the dog's head he was stroking.