Part 6 (1/2)
[Sidenote: Faithful Maidens]
We have all read of the faithful maidens who kept on weaving stores of fine linen and making regular pilgrimages for the letter which did not come. Years afterward, when the man finally appeared, it was all right, and the wedding went on just the same, even though in the meantime the recreant knight had married and been bereaved.
Two or three homeless children were sometimes brought cheerfully into the story, and a.s.sisted materially in the continuation of the interrupted courts.h.i.+p. The tears which the modern spinster sheds over such a tale are not at the pathos of the situation, but because it is possible, even in fiction, for a woman to be so dest.i.tute of spirit.
[Sidenote: Without Saying a Word]
”In dem days,” as Uncle Remus would say, any attention whatever meant business. Small courtesies which are without significance now were fraught with momentous import then. In this year of grace, among all races except our own, there are ways in which a man may definitely commit himself without saying a word.
A flower or a serenade is almost equivalent to a proposal in sunny Spain. A ”walking-out” period of six months is much in vogue in other parts of Europe, but the daughter of the Anglo-Saxon has no such guide to a man's intentions.
Among certain savage tribes, if a man is in love with a girl and wishes to marry her, he drags her around his tent by the hair or administers a severe beating. It may be surmised that these attentions are not altogether pleasant, but she has the advantage of knowing what the man means.
Flowers are a pretty courtesy and nothing more. The kindly thought which prompts them may be as transient as their bloom. Three or four men serenade girls on summer nights because they love to hear themselves sing. Books, and music, and sweets, which convention decrees are the only proper gifts for the unattached, may be sent to any girl, without affecting her indifference to furniture advertis.e.m.e.nts and January sales of linen.
If there is any actual courts.h.i.+p at the present time, the girl does just as much of it as the man. Her dainty remembrances at holiday time have little more meaning than the trifles a man bestows upon her, though the gift lat.i.tude accorded her is much wider in scope.
[Sidenote: Furniture]
When a girl gives a man furniture, she usually intends to marry him, but often merely succeeds in making things interesting for the girl who does it in spite of her. The newly-married woman attends to the personal belongings of her happy possessor with the celerity which is taught in cla.s.ses for ”First Aid to the Injured.”
One by one, the cherished souvenirs of his bachelor days disappear.
Pictures painted by rival fair ones go to adorn the servant's room, through gradual retirement backward. Rare china is mysteriously broken.
Sofa cus.h.i.+ons never ”harmonise with the tone of the room,” and the covers have to be changed. It takes time, but usually by the first anniversary of a man's marriage, his penates have been n.o.bly weeded out, and the things he has left are of his wife's choosing, generously purchased with his own money.
Woe to the girl who gives a man a scarf-pin! When the bride returns the initial call, that scarf-pin adds conspicuously to her adornment. The calm appropriation makes the giver grind her teeth--- and the bride knows it.
In the man's presence, the keeper of his heart and conscience will say, sweetly: ”Oh, my dear, such a dreadful thing has happened! That exquisitely embroidered scarf you made for Tom's chiffonier is utterly ruined! The colours ran the first time it was washed. You have no idea how I feel about it--it was such a beautiful thing!”
The wretched donor of the scarf attempts consolation by saying that it doesn't matter. It never was intended for Tom, but as every st.i.tch in it was taken while he was with her, he insisted that he must have it as a souvenir of that happy summer. She adds that it was carefully washed before it was given to him, that she has never known that kind of silk to fade, and that something must have been done to it to make the colours run.
[Sidenote: A Pitched Battle]
The short-sighted man at this juncture felicitates himself because the two are getting on so well together. He never realises that a pitched battle has occurred under his very nose, and that the honours are about even.
If Tom possesses a particularly unfortunate flash-light photograph of the girl, the bride joyfully frames it and puts it on the mantel where all may see. If the original of the caricature remonstrates, the happy wife sweetly temporises and insists that it remain, because ”Tom is so fond of it,” and says, ”it looks just like her.”
Devious indeed are the paths of woman. She far excels the ”Heathen Chinee” in his famous specialty of ”ways that are dark and tricks that are vain.”
Courts.h.i.+p is a game that a girl has to play without knowing the trump.
The only way she ever succeeds at it is by playing to an imaginary trump of her own, which may be either open, disarming friendliness, or simple indifference.
When a man finds the way to a woman's heart a boulevard, he has taken the wrong road. When his path is easy and his burden light, it is time for him to doubt. When his progress seems like making a new way to the Klondike, he needs only to keep his courage and go on.
For, after all, it is woman who decides. A clever girl may usually marry any man she sees fit to honour with the responsibility of her bills. The ardent lover counts for considerably less than he is wont to suppose.
[Sidenote: The Only One They Know]