Tied to the little dog's collar when he went home the next morning was a tiny, inconspicuous tag that said "That was easy! The pup's name-and yours-is 'Meredith.' Funny name for a dog but nice for a girl."
The Serial-Letter Co.'s answers were always prompt, even though perplexing.
"DEAR LAD," came this special answer. "You are quite right
about the dog. And I compliment you heartily on your
shrewdness. But I must confess,-even though it makes you
very angry with me, that I have deceived you absolutely
concerning my own name. Will you forgive me utterly if I
hereby promise never to deceive you again? Why what could I
possibly, possibly do with a great solemn name like
'Meredith'? My truly name, Sir, my really, truly,
honest-injun name is 'Molly Make-Believe'. Don't you know
the funny little old song about 'Molly Make-Believe'? Oh,
surely you do:
"'Molly, Molly Make-Believe,
Keep to your play if you would not grieve!
For Molly-Mine here's a hint for you,
Things that are true are apt to be blue!'
"Now you remember it, don't you? Then there's something
about
"'Molly, Molly Make-a-Smile,
Wear it, swear it all the while.
Long as your lips are framed for a joke,
Who can prove that your heart is broke?'
"Don't you love that 'is broke'! Then there's the last
verse-my favorite:
"'Molly, Molly Make-a-Beau,
Make him of mist or make him of snow,
Long as your DREAM stays fine and fair,
Molly, Molly what do you care!'"
"Well, I'll wager that her name is 'Meredith' just the same," vowed Stanton, "and she's probably madder than scat to think that I hit it right."
Whether the daily overtures from the Serial-Letter Co. proved to be dogs or love-letters or hot-water bottles or funny old songs, it was reasonably evident that something unique was practically guaranteed to happen every single, individual night of the six weeks' subscription contract. Like a youngster's joyous dream of chronic Christmas Eves, this realization alone was enough to put an absurdly delicious thrill of expectancy into any invalid's otherwise prosy thoughts.
Yet the next bit of attention from the Serial-Letter Co. did not please Stanton one half as much as it embarrassed him.
Wandering socially into the room from his own apartments below, a young lawyer friend of Stanton's had only just seated himself on the foot of Stanton's bed when an expressman also arrived with two large pasteboard hat-boxes which he straightway dumped on the bed between the two men with the laconic message that he would call for them again in the morning.
"Heaven preserve me!" gasped Stanton. "What is this?"
Fearsomely out of the smaller of the two boxes he lifted with much rustling snarl of tissue paper a woman's brown fur-hat,-very soft, very fluffy, inordinately jaunty with a blush-pink rose nestling deep in the fur. Out of the other box, twice as large, twice as rustly, flaunted a green velvet cavalier's hat, with a green ostrich feather as long as a man's arm drooping languidly off the brim.
"Holy Cat!" said Stanton.
Pinned to the green hat's crown was a tiny note. The handwriting at least was pleasantly familiar by this time.
"Oh, I say!" cried the lawyer delightedly.
With a desperately painful effort at nonchalance, Stanton shoved his right fist into the brown hat and his left fist into the green one, and raised them quizzically from the bed.
"Darned-good-looking-hats," he stammered.
"Oh, I say!" repeated the lawyer with accumulative delight.
Crimson to the tip of his ears, Stanton rolled his eyes frantically towards the little note.
"She sent 'em up just to show 'em to me," he quoted wildly. "Just 'cause I'm laid up so and can't get out on the streets to see the styles for myself.-And I've got to choose between them for her!" he ejaculated. "She says she can't decide alone which one to keep!"
"Bully for her!" cried the lawyer, surprisingly, slapping his knee. "The cunning little girl!"
Speechless with astonishment, Stanton lay and watched his visitor, then "Well, which one would you choose?" he asked with unmistakable relief.
The lawyer took the hats and scanned them carefully. "Let-me-see" he considered. "Her hair is so blond-"
"No, it's red!" snapped Stanton.
With perfect courtesy the lawyer swallowed his mistake. "Oh, excuse me," he said. "I forgot. But with her height-"
"She hasn't any height," groaned Stanton. "I tell you she's little."
"Choose to suit yourself," said the lawyer coolly. He himself had admired Cornelia from afar off.
The next night, to Stanton's mixed feelings of relief and disappointment the "surprise" seemed to consist in the fact that nothing happened at all. Fully until midnight the sense of relief comforted him utterly. But some time after midnight, his hungry mind, like a house-pet robbed of an accustomed meal, began to wake and fret and stalk around ferociously through all the long, empty, aching, early morning hours, searching for something novel to think about.
By supper-time the next evening he was in an irritable mood that made him fairly clutch the special delivery letter out of the postman's hand. It was rather a thin, tantalizing little letter, too. All it said was,
"To-night, Dearest, until one o'clock, in a cabbage-colored
gown all shimmery with green and blue and September
frost-lights, I'm going to sit up by my white birch-wood
fire and read aloud to you. Yes! Honest-Injun! And out of
Browning, too. Did you notice your copy was marked? What
shall I read to you? Shall it be
"'If I could have that little head of hers
Painted upon a background of pale gold.'
"or
'Shall I sonnet-sing you about myself?
Do I live in a house you would like to see?'
"or
'I am a Painter who cannot paint,
--No end to all I cannot do.
Yet do one thing at least I can,
Love a man, or hate a man!'
"or just
'Escape me?
Never,
Beloved!
While I am I, and you are you!'
"Oh, Honey! Won't it be fun? Just you and I, perhaps, in all
this Big City, sitting up and thinking about each other.
Can you smell the white birch smoke in this letter?"
[Illustration: "Well I'll be hanged," growled Stanton, "if I'm going to be strung by any boy!"]
Almost unconsciously Stanton raised the page to his face. Unmistakably, up from the paper rose the strong, vivid scent-of a briar-wood pipe.
"Well I'll be hanged," growled Stanton, "if I'm going to be strung by any boy!" Out of all proportion the incident irritated him.
But when, the next evening, a perfectly tremendous bunch of yellow jonquils arrived with a penciled line suggesting, "If you'll put these solid gold posies in your window to-morrow morning at eight o'clock, so I'll surely know just which window is yours, I'll look up-when I go past," Stanton most peremptorily ordered the janitor to display the bouquet as ornately as possible along the narrow window-sill of the biggest window that faced the street. Then all through the night he lay dozing and waking intermittently, with a lovely, scared feeling in the pit of his stomach that something really rather exciting was about to happen. By surely half-past seven he rose laboriously from his bed, huddled himself into his black-sheep wrapper and settled himself down as warmly as could be expected, close to the draughty edge of the window.