Love Me Little, Love Me Long Part 86

I may as well take this opportunity of saying that these two egotists carried out the promise of their respective letters. Mr. Fountain bl.u.s.tered for a year or two, and then showed manifest signs of relenting.

Mrs. Bazalgette kept cool, and wrote, in oils, twice a year to Mrs.

Dodd:

"ET GARDAIT TOUT DOUCEMENT UNE HAINE IRRECONCILIABLE."

Lucy had to answer these letters. In signing one of them, she took a look at her new signature and smiled. "What a dear, quaint little name mine is!" said she. "Lucy Dodd;" and she kissed the signature.

A Month after Marriage.

The Dodds took a house in London and Eve came up to them. David was nearly all day superintending the s.h.i.+p, but spent the whole evening with his wife at home. Zeal always produces irritation. The servant that is anxious for his employer's interest is sure to get into a pa.s.sion or two with the deadness, indifference and heartless injustice of the genuine hireling. So David was often irritated and worried, and in hot water, while superintending the _Rajah,_ but the moment he saw his own door, away he threw it all, and came into the house like a jocund sunbeam. Nothing wins a woman more than this, provided she is already inclined in the man's favor. As the hour that brought David approached, Lucy's spirits and Eve's used both to rise by antic.i.p.ation, and that antic.i.p.ation his hearty, genial temper never disappointed.

One day Lucy came to David for information. "David, there is a singular change in me. It is since we came to London. I used to be a placid girl; now I am a fidget."

"I don't see it, love."

"No; how should you, dear? It always goes away when you come. Now listen. When five o'clock comes near, I turn hot and restless, and can hardly keep from the window; and if you are five minutes after your time, I really cannot keep from the window; and my nerves _se crispent,_ and I cannot sit still. It is very foolish. What does it mean? Can you tell me?"

"Of course I can. I am just the same when people are unpunctual. It is inexcusable, and nothing is so vexing. I ought to be--"

"Oh David, what nonsense! it is not that. Could I ever be vexed with my David?"

"Well, then, there is Eve; we'll ask her."

"If you dare, sir!" and Mrs. Dodd was carnation.

Four years after the above events

Two ladies were gossiping.

1st Lady. "What I like about Mrs. Dodd is that she is so truthful."

2d Lady. "Oh, is she?"

1st Lady. "Yes, she is indeed. Certainly she is not a woman that blurts out unpleasant things without any necessity; she is kind and considerate in word and deed, but she is always true. She has got an eye that meets you like a little lion's eye, and a tongue without guile. I do love Mrs. Dodd dearly."

Two Qui his were talking in Leadenhall Street.

1st Qui hi. "Well, so you are going out again."

2d Qui hi. "Yes; they have offered me a commissioners.h.i.+p. I must make another lac for the children."

1st Qui hi. "When do you sail?"

2d Qui hi. "By the first good s.h.i.+p. I should like a good s.h.i.+p."

1st Qui hi. "Well, then, you had better go out with Gentleman Dodd."

2d Qui hi. "Gentleman Dodd? I should prefer Sailor Dodd. I don't want to founder off the Cape."

1st Qui hi. "Oh, but this is a first-rate sailor, and a first-rate fellow altogether."

2d Qui hi. "Then why do you call him 'Gentleman Dodd'?"

1st Qui hi. "Oh, because he is so polite. He won't stand an oath within hearing of his quarter-deck, and is particularly kind and courteous to the pa.s.sengers, especially to the ladies. His s.h.i.+p is always full."

2d Qui hi. "Is it? Then I'll go out with 'Gentleman Dodd.'"

TO MY MALE READERS.

I SEE with some surprise that there still linger in the field of letters writers who think that, in fiction, when a personage speaks with an air of conviction, the sentiments must be the author's own.

(When two of his personages give each other the lie, which represents the author? both?)

I must ask you to shun this error; for instance, do not go and take Eve Dodd's opinion of my heroine, or Mrs. Bazalgette's, for mine.

Miss Dodd, in particular, however epigrammatic she may appear, is shallow: her criticism _peche par la base._ She talks too much as if young girls were in the habit of looking into their own minds, like little metaphysicians, and knowing all that goes on there; but, on the contrary, this is just what women in general don't do, and young women can't do.

No male will quite understand Lucy Fountain who does not take "instinct" and "self-deception" into the account. But with those two dews and your own intelligence, you cannot fail to unravel her, and will, I hope, thank me in your hearts for leaving you something to study, and not clogging my sluggish narrative with a ma.s.s of comment and explanation.

The End.