Unleavened Bread | Page 4

far away expression in her eyes suggested
kinship with the unseen and the eternal, he said, admiringly but humbly,
"It must be grand to be clever like you, Selma. I'm no good at that. But
if loving you will make up for it, I'll go far, little woman."
"What I know of that I like, and -- and if some day, I can make you
proud of me, so much the better," said Selma.
"Proud of you? You are an angel, and you know it."
She closed her eyes and sighed again. Even the bright avenues of fame,
which her keen eyes had traversed through the golden moon, paled
before this tribute from the lips of real flesh and blood. What woman
can withstand the fascination of a lover's faith that she is an angel? If a
man is fool enough to believe it, why undeceive him? And if he is so
sure of it, may it even not be so? Selma was content to have it so,
especially as the assertion did not jar with her own prepossessions; and
thus they rode home in the summer night in the mutual contentment of
a betrothal.

Chapter II.
The match was thoroughly agreeable to Mrs. Farley, Selma's aunt and
nearest relation, who with her husband presided over a flourishing
poultry farm in Wilton. She was an easy-going, friendly spirit, with a
sharp but not wide vision, who did not believe that a likelier fellow
than Lewis Babcock would come wooing were her niece to wait a
lifetime. He was hearty, comical, and generous, and was said to be
making money fast in the varnish business. In short, he seemed to her
an admirable young man, with a stock of common-sense and high
spirits eminently serviceable for a domestic venture. How full of fun he
was, to be sure! It did her good to behold the tribute his appetite paid to
the buckwheat cakes with cream and other tempting viands she set
before him -- a pleasing contrast to Selma's starveling diet -- and the
hearty smack with which he enforced his demands upon her own
cheeks as his mother-in-law apparent, argued an affectionate

disposition. Burly, rosy-cheeked, good-natured, was he not the very
man to dispel her niece's vagaries and turn the girl's morbid cleverness
into healthy channels?
Selma, therefore, found nothing but encouragement in her choice at
home; so by the end of another three months they were made man and
wife, and had moved into that little house in Benham which had
attracted Babcock's eye. Benham, as has been indicated, was in the
throes of bustle and self-improvement. Before the war it had been
essentially unimportant. But the building of a railroad through the town
and the discovery of oil wells in its neighborhood had transformed it in
a twinkling into an active and spirited centre. Selma's new house was
on the edge of the city, in the van of real estate progress, one of a row
of small but ambitious-looking dwellings, over the dark yellow
clapboards of which the architect had let his imagination run rampant
in scrolls and flourishes. There was fancy colored glass in a sort of
rose-window over the front door, and lozenges of fancy glass here and
there in the facade. Each house had a little grass-plot, which Babcock
in his case had made appurtenant to a metal stag, which seemed to him
the finishing touch to a cosey and ornamental home. He had done his
best and with all his heart, and the future was before them.
Babcock found himself radiant over the first experiences of married life.
It was just what he had hoped, only better. His imagination in
entertaining an angel had not been unduly literal, and it was a constant
delight and source of congratulation to him to reflect over his pipe on
the lounge after supper that the charming piece of flesh and blood
sewing or reading demurely close by was the divinity of his domestic
hearth. There she was to smile at him when he came home at night and
enable him to forget the cares and dross of the varnish business. Her
presence across the table added a new zest to every meal and improved
his appetite. In marrying he had expected to cut loose from his bachelor
habits, and he asked for nothing better than to spend every evening
alone with Selma, varied by an occasional evening at the theatre, and a
drive out to the Farleys' now and then for supper. This, with the regular
Sunday service at Rev. Henry Glynn's church, rounded out the weeks to
his perfect satisfaction. He was conscious of feeling that the situation

did not admit of improvement, for though, when he measured himself
with Selma, Babcock was humble-minded, a cheerful and