Wanted--A Match Maker | Page 2

family--she would have married years ago. But she is wholly blind to her duty, and checks or rebuffs every man who attempts to show her devotion. And just because others take their places, she is puffed up into the belief that she is to go through life with an everlasting train of would-be suitors, and so enjoys her own triumph, with never a thought of my girls."
"Why not ask her father to speak to her?"
"My dear! As if I hadn't, a dozen times at the least,"
"And what does he say?"
"That Constance shows her sense by not caring for the men I invite to the house! As if I could help it! Of course with three girls in the house one must cultivate dancing-men, and it's very unfair to blame me if they aren't all one could wish."
"I thought Constance gave up going to dances last winter?"
"She did, but still I must ask them to my dinners, for if I don't they won't show Muriel and Doris attention. Mr. Durant should realise that I only do it for their sakes; yet to listen to him you'd suppose it was my duty to close my doors to dancing-men, and spend my time seeking out the kind one never hears of--who certainly don't know how to dance, and who would either not talk at my dinners, or would lecture upon one subject to the whole table--just because they are what he calls 'purposeful men.'"
"He probably recognises that the society man is not a marrying species, while the other is."
"But there are several who would marry Constance in a minute if she'd only give any one of them the smallest encouragement; and that's what I mean when I complain of her being so unimpressionable. Muriel and Doris like our set of men well enough, and I don't see what right she has to be so over-particular."
Mrs. Ferguson rose and began the adjustment of her wrap, while saying, "It seems to me there is but one thing for you to do, Anne."
"What?" eagerly questioned Mrs. Durant.
"Indulge in a little judicious matchmaking," suggested the friend, as she held out her hand.
"It's utterly useless, Josie. I've tried again and again, and every time have only done harm."
"How?"
"She won't--she is so suspicious. Now, last winter, Weston Curtis was sending her flowers and--and, oh, all that sort of thing, and so I invited him to dinner several times, and always put him next Constance, and tried to help him in other ways, until she--well, what do you think that girl did?"
Mrs. Ferguson's interest led her to drop her outstretched hand. "Requested you not to?" she asked.
"Not one word did she have the grace to say to me, Josie, but she wrote to him, and asked him not to send her any more flowers! Just think of it."
"Then that's why he went to India."
"Yes. Of course if she had come and told me she didn't care for him, I never would have kept on inviting him; but she is so secretive it is impossible to tell what she is thinking about. I never dreamed that she was conscious that I was trying to--to help her; and I have always been so discreet that I think she never would have been if Mr. Durant hadn't begun to joke about it. Only guess, darling, what he said to me once right before her, just as I thought I was getting her interested in young Schenck!"
"I can't imagine."
"Oh, it was some of his Wall Street talk about promoters of trusts always securing options on the properties to be taken in, before attempting a consolidation, or something of that sort. I shouldn't have known what he meant if the boys hadn't laughed and looked at Constance. And then Jack made matters worse by saying that my interest would be satisfied with common stock, but Constance would only accept preferred for hers. Men do blurt things out so--and yet they assert that we women haven't tongue discretion. No, dear, with them about it's perfectly useless for me to do so much as lift a finger to marry Constance off, let alone her own naturally distrustful nature."
"Well, then, can't you get some one to do it for you--some friend of hers?"
"I don't believe there is a person in the world who could influence Constance as regards marriage," moaned Mrs. Durant. "Don't think that I want to sacrifice her, dear; but she really isn't happy herself--for--well--she is a stepdaughter, you know--and so can never quite be the same in the family life; and now that she has tired of society, she really doesn't find enough to do to keep busy. Constance wanted to go into the Settlement work, but her father wouldn't hear of it--and really, Josie, every one would be happier and better if she only