Mary Minds Her Business | Page 4

delicacy of material and workmanship--reminiscent of old china--which seems to indicate the perfect type of spinster-hood. Here and there in their hair gleamed touches of silver, and their cheeks might have reminded you of tinted apples which had lightly been kissed with the frost.
And so they sat looking at each other, intently, almost breathlessly, each suddenly moved by the same question and each wishing that the other would speak.
For the second time it was Cordelia who broke the silence.
"Patty--!"
"Yes, dear?" breathed Patty, and left her lips slightly parted.
"I wonder if Josiah--is too old--to marry again! Of course," she hurriedly added, "he is fifty-two--but it seems to me that one of the Spicers--I think it was Captain Abner Spicer--had children until he was sixty--although by a younger wife, of course."
They looked it up and in so doing they came across an Ezra Babcock, father-in-law of the Third Josiah Spencer, who had had a son proudly born to him in his sixty-fourth year.
They gazed at each other then, those two maiden sisters, like two conspirators in their precious innocence.
"If we could find Josiah a young wife--" said the elder at last.
"Oh, Cordelia!" breathed Patty, "if, indeed, we only could!"
Which was really how it started.
As I think you will realize, it would be a story in itself to describe the progress of that gentle intrigue--the consultations, the gradual eliminations, the search, the abandonment of the search--(which came immediately after learning of two elderly gentlemen with young wives--but no children!)--the almost immediate resumption of the quest because of Josiah's failing health--and finally then the reward of patience, the pious nudge one Sunday morning in church, the whispered "Look, Cordelia, that strange girl with the Pearsons--no, the one with the red cheeks--yes, that one!"--the exchange of significant glances, the introduction, the invitation and last, but least, the verification of the fruitfulness of the vine.
The girl's name was Martha Berger and her home was in California. She had come east to attend the wedding of her brother and was now staying with the Pearsons a few weeks before returning west. Her age was twenty-six. She had no parents, very little money, and taught French, English and Science in the high school back home.
"Have you any brothers or sisters!" asked Miss Cordelia, with a side glance toward Miss Patty.
"Only five brothers and five sisters," laughed Martha.
For a moment it might be said that Miss Cordelia purred.
"Any of them married?" she continued.
"All but me."
"My dear! ... You don't mean to say that they have made you an aunt already?"
Martha paused with that inward look which generally accompanies mental arithmetic.
"Only about seventeen times," she finally laughed again.
When their guest had gone, the two sisters fairly danced around each other.
"Oh, Patty!" exulted Miss Cordelia, "I'm sure she's a fruitful vine!"

CHAPTER II
There is something inexorable in the purpose of a maiden lady--perhaps because she has no minor domestic troubles to distract her; and when you have two maiden ladies working on the same problem, and both of them possessed of wealth and unusual intelligence--!
They started by taking Martha to North East Harbor for the balance of the summer, and then to keep her from going west in the fall, they engaged her to teach them French that winter at quite a fabulous salary. They also took her to Boston and bought her some of the prettiest dresses imaginable; and the longer they knew her, the more they liked her; and the more they liked her, the more they tried to enlist her sympathies in behalf of poor Josiah--and the more they tried to throw their brother into Martha's private company.
"Look here," he said one day, when his two sisters were pushing him too hard. "What's all this excitement about Martha? Who is she, anyway?"
"Why, don't you know!" Cordelia sweetly asked him, and drawing a full breath she added: "Martha--is--your--future--wife--"
If you had been there, you would have been pardoned for thinking that the last of the Spencers had suddenly discovered that he was sitting upon a remonstrative bee.
The two sisters smiled at him--rather nervously, it is true, but still they kept their hands upon their brother's shoulders, as though they were two nurses soothing a patient and saying: "There, now ... The-e-e-ere ... Just be quiet and you'll feel better in a little while."
"Yes, dear," whispered Cordelia, her mouth ever so close to his ear. "Your future wife--and the mother of your future children--"
"Nonsense, nonsense--" muttered Josiah, breaking away quite flustered. "I'm--I'm too old--"
Almost speaking in concert they told him about Captain Abner Spencer who had children until he was sixty, and Ezra Babcock, father-in-law of the third Josiah Spencer, who had a son proudly born to him in his sixty-fourth year.
"And she's such a lovely girl," said Cordelia earnestly. "Patty and I are quite in love with her ourselves--"
"And think what