Part 22 (1/2)
”Smiley! Smiley!” exclaimed Bob, scornfully. ”Why, he never had the ghost of a chance. Bessie told me last night she despised him. She wouldn't look at such a man as he is.”
”Not while such men as you are around, at any rate, I suppose?”
”When are you going to speak to Bessie's father?” asked Mrs. Adeler.
A cloud suddenly pa.s.sed over Bob's face, and he said:
”I don't know. I have to do it, I s'pose, but I hate it worse than I can tell you. I believe I'd rather propose to a woman a dozen times than to broach the matter to a stern parent once. It's all well enough to express your feelings to a woman who loves you; but when you come to explain the matter to a cold-blooded, matter-of-fact old man who is as prosy as a boiled turnip, it seems kind of ridiculous.”
”Why don't you speak to Mrs. Dr. Magruder, then? She is a power in that family.”
”No; I'll talk to Mr. Magruder. It's hard, but it has to be done. And see here, Max, don't you poke fun at Mrs. Magruder. She's a first-rate woman, and those things Dr. Jones told about her are the most rascally kind of lies. If you'll excuse me, I'll go down and see the old man now.
I might as well settle the thing at once.”
This evening, while we were waiting for tea, Bob made a report. The paternal Magruder, it seems, had already considered the subject carefully, and was not by any means as much surprised by Mr. Parker's statement as the latter expected he would be. Bob was amazed to find that although the old gentleman during the courts.h.i.+p had appeared wholly unconscious of the fact that his daughter was particularly intimate with the youth, yet somehow he seemed now to have had all the time a very clear perception of the state of the case.
”I thought he would get excited and, maybe, show a little emotion,” said Bob, ”but blame me if he didn't sit there and take it as coolly as if such things happened to him every day. And you know, when I began to tell him how much I thought of Bessie, he soused down on me and brought me back to prose with a question about the size of my income. But it's all right. He said he would be glad to have me a member of his family, and then he called in Bessie, and gave us a kind of a blessing and advised us not to be in a hurry about getting married.”
”Very good advice, too. There is no need of haste. You ought to have plenty of time to think the matter over.”
”Think it over!” exclaimed Bob, indignantly. ”Why, I _have_ thought it over. You don't suppose I'd be such a fool as to engage myself to a girl without thinking seriously about it?”
”Certainly not; but marriage is a very solemn thing, and it should be undertaken advisedly. It is probable, I suppose, that you would never, under any circ.u.mstances, marry any woman but Bessie Magruder?”
”Nev-er; no, never!”
”You don't believe in second marriages, then?”
”Certainly not.”
”They _do_ get a man into trouble very often. Did I ever tell you about old Sparks, of Pencadder Hundred?”
[Ill.u.s.tration]
”I think not,” said Bob.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
”Well, old Sparks was married four times; and several years after the death of his last wife they started a new cemetery up there at Pencadder. Sparks bought a lot, and determined to remove his sacred dust from the old graveyard. Somehow or other, in taking the remains over to the cemetery in the wagon, they were hopelessly mixed together, so that it was utterly impossible to tell which was which. Any other man than Sparks would simply have taken the chances of having the reinterments properly made. But he was an extremely conscientious man; and when the sepulture was completed, he had a lot of new headstones set in, bearing such inscriptions as these: 'Here lies Jane (and probably part of Susan) Sparks;' 'Sacred to the memory of Maria (to say nothing of Jane and Hannah) Sparks.'
”'Stranger, pause and drop a tear, For Susan Sparks lies buried here; Mingled, in some perplexing manner, With Jane, Maria and portions of Hannah.'”
”Don't it seem a little bit rough,” said Bob, ”to bring in such a story as that in connection with my engagement? I don't like it.”
”Pardon me, Bob. Perhaps it was neither gracious nor in good taste, but somehow I just happened to think of old Sparks at that moment, I am sure, though, you won't object to another narrative which I am going to read to you upon the subject of too frequent marriage. It is the story of Bishop Potts. Do you feel like hearing it?”
”Well, no,” said Bob, gloomily, ”to tell you the truth, I don't; but I suppose I will have to hear it, so go ahead.”
”Yes, I am going to inflict it upon you whether you want it or not. A man who is meditating matrimony, and is in a hurry, needs the influence of a few 'awful examples' to induce him to proceed slowly. Here is the story. The hero was a dignitary in the Mormon Church, and his sufferings were the result of excessive marriage. The tale is ent.i.tled