The Whole Family | Page 9

see him--you and Mrs. Temple. Well!" He lifted his head, as
if he were going away, but he did not lift his arms from the fence, and
so I knew that he had not emptied the bag of his unexpected
confidences; I did not know why he was making them to me, but I liked
him the better for them, and tried to feel that I was worthy of them. He
began with a laugh, "They both paid it into me so," and now I knew
that he meant his eldest daughter as well as her grandmother, "that my
wife turned round and took my part, and said it was the very best thing
that could happen; and she used all the arguments that I had used with
her, when she had her misgivings about it, and she didn't leave them a
word to say. A curious thing about it was, that though my arguments
seemed to convince them, they didn't convince me. Ever notice, how
when another person repeats what you've said, it sounds kind of weak
and foolish?" I owned that my reasons had at times some such way of
turning against me from the mouths of others, and he went on: "But
they seemed to silence her own misgivings, and she's been enthusiastic
for the engagement ever since. What's the reason," he asked, "why a
man, if he's any way impetuous, wants to back out of a situation just
about the time a woman has got set in it like the everlasting hills? Is it
because she feels the need of holding fast for both, or is it because she
knows she hasn't the strength to keep to her conclusion, if she wavers at
all, while a man can let himself play back and forth, and still stay put."
"Well, in a question like that," I said, and I won my neighbor's easy
laugh, "I always like to give my own sex the benefit of the doubt, and I
haven't any question but man's inconsistency is always attributable to
his magnanimity."
"I guess I shall have to put that up on the doctor," my neighbor said, as
he lifted his arms from the fence at last, and backed away from it. I
knew that he was really going in-doors now, and that I must come out
with what was in my mind, if I meant to say it at all, and so I said,
"By-the-way, there's something. You know I don't go in much for
what's called society journalism, especially in the country press, where
it mostly takes the form of 'Miss Sadie Myers is visiting with Miss
Mamie Peters,' but I realize that a country paper nowadays must be a
kind of open letter to the neighborhood, and I suppose you have no
objection to my mentioning the engagement?"
This made Mr. Talbert look serious; and I fancy my proposition made

him realize the affair as he had not before, perhaps. After a moment's
pause, he said, "Well! That's something I should like to talk with my
wife about."
"Do so!" I applauded. "I only suggest it--or chiefly, or partly--because
you can have it reach our public in just the form you want, and the
Rochester and Syracuse papers will copy my paragraph; but if you
leave it to their Eastridge correspondents--"
"That's true," he assented. "I'll speak to Mrs. Talbert--" He walked so
inconclusively away that I was not surprised to have him turn and come
back before I left my place. "Why, certainly! Make the announcement!
It's got to come out. It's a kind of a wrench, thinking of it as a public
affair; because a man's daughter is always a little girl to him, and he
can't realize--And this one--But of course!"
"Would you like to suggest any particular form of words?" I hesitated.
"Oh no! Leave that to you entirely. I know we can trust you not to
make any blare about it. Just say that they were fellow-students--I
should like that to be known, so that people sha'n't think I don't like to
have it known--and that he's looking forward to a professorship in the
same college--How queer it all seems!"
"Very well, then, I'll announce it in our next. There's time to send me
word if Mrs. Talbert has any suggestions."
"All right. But she won't have any. Well, good-evening."
"Good-evening," I said from my side of the fence; and when I had
watched him definitively in-doors, I turned and walked into my own
house.
The first thing my wife said was, "You haven't asked him to let you
announce it in the Banner?"
"But I have, though!"
"Well!" she gasped.
"What is the matter?" I demanded. "It's a public affair, isn't it?"
"It's a family affair--"
"Well, I consider the