honest black face. While the husbands were discussing the viands he carried to them, their wives were discussing the new situation of affairs.
"Ladies," said Mrs. Rutherford, after informing them of the whereabouts of their spouses, "you are all at liberty to invite your husbands back here to dinner; whether you do so or not is for each of you to decide for herself. As for me, Mr. Rutherford said he would never return, and I am not going to ask him to."
"We all, in the heat of passion, say things," replied Mrs. Honey, "which at the time we think we mean, but for which we are afterwards sorry. Did not William say he left me forever?"
"No," answered Mrs. Wildfen, "he said 'wunst an' hallways.'"
"That's unkind of you, Lydia," remarked the gentle Gertrude. "What does it matter whether a man spells his heart with an 'h' or an 'a,' so long as it is in the right place? – as I am sure Mr. Honey's is."
"Thank you, my dear," responded Mrs. Honey, with moistening eyes. "Your good husband can never have committed the crime imputed to him."
"Nor mine either, I suppose you think?" queried Mrs. Rutherford; to which the schoolmistress replied that that certainly was what she did think.
"Oh, yes," sneered Miss Fithian; "you're all in the melting mood. You'll get down on your knees and beg 'em to come back and trample on you."
Mrs. Honey smiled as she remarked: "They must, by this time, be too famished to trample much. I know that must be my husband's condition. With his enormous appetite I think he must be now about starved into submission, if not penitence."
"Remember, it is Christmas, and we should forgive and forget," said Mrs. Plowden. "Suppose we unite in an invitation to them to come to dinner to-day."
"Good!" eagerly responded Mrs. Honey, "and send it by Sam, with a flag of truce."
"Yes, and put in that we will undertake to keep the peace during dinner," added Mrs. Plowden.
"Say rather," suggested Mrs. Rutherford, "that we will preserve an armed neutrality."
"No, no, that's too warlike," protested Mrs. Honey; "I will draw up a pacific invitation, and we will all sign it."
"I won't," promptly objected Mrs. Wildfen. "At least, I won't put my name first. That would look as if I had flung down my arms and surrendered unconditionally."
"What then shall we do to preserve our dignity and get them back?" piteously asked Mrs. Plowden. "Rob and I had no quarrel, and I want him – bigamist or no bigamist."
"Mrs. Plowden! I am shocked! and will no longer remain under the same roof with you!" exclaimed Miss Fithian. "Edna, I am going to order Jim to hitch up the sleigh and drive me to the depot. I shall go to cousin Melinda's."
Mrs. Rutherford made a feeble show of urging her to remain until after dinner, but she replied: "No, no; I will not sit at table with your hypocrite and that woman's bigamist."
Said Mrs. Rutherford coldly, "Then I fear that we will have to be deprived of the pleasure of your society."
As soon as order was again restored, after Miss Fithian's unregretted departure, Mrs. Honey took up the interrupted theme. "Suppose, then," she said, thoughtfully, "as no one seems willing to sign first, that we draw up a 'round-robin' which we can all sign, without either seeming to lead."
"I won't," again objected Mrs. Wildfen – "not until I know what a 'round-robin' is."
"It is a paper to which signatures are affixed in a surrounding circle, so that the precedence of all is equal."
"Oh, I'll sign that!" "So will I!" "And I!" responded the other wives.
This then was the form in which Mrs. Honey drew up the invitation, and the signatures were affixed.
When completed, and addressed "To the gentlemen in the pavilion," it was handed to Sam for delivery, and he went off chuckling over the success of his ruse in attracting attention to his foray upon the luncheon-table. In a short time he brought back a verbal acceptance of the invitation.
Mrs. Honey had constituted herself leader of the feminine discontents. When they were marshalled in the dining-room, awaiting their guests, she thus addressed them:
"Ladies, now let us preserve a calm, cold, and dignified demeanor, so as to let them understand that we have simply taken compassion upon them, not as husbands, but as men, and in the name of a common humanity."
"Exactly," assented Mrs. Rutherford. "No beggar, especially at this season, should be turned away either cold or hungry from my door."
The speech addressed by Mr. Rutherford to his friends and partners in adversity was quite in consonance with that uttered by Mrs. Honey.
"Gentlemen," said he, "do not let us show elation or be too eager to forgive our wives, but bear ourselves as just men who, having received overtures for peace, are willing to grant proper consideration to proffered terms of capitulation."
Following their host, Wildfen and Honey supported between them Mr. Plowden, who when he entered the dining-room seemed much cheered by the absence of Miss Fithian. No word was spoken as the husbands entered, and in stern silence each retook the seat he had occupied on Christmas Eve. The turkey – a grand bird, yellow-meated and tender from fattening on English walnuts – had been served and eaten in silence.
Suddenly Sam ushered in a shivering telegraph-boy, with a message for Mr. Rutherford. When the diners were left alone again, the host arose and said:
"Friends, last evening you heard made against me a charge which I was, at the time, bound in honor not to refute. It fortunately happens that you are all present to hear my exculpation. First let me read this telegram: 'Your message received by fortunate accident. Tell everything. No further need for secrecy. Mother dead two months. Daughter with me. —Charles Wilbour.' Now for the solution of it. I inherited my father's practice, and some odd clients he had. Among them was a gentleman who had made a secret marriage, for which his wealthy mother, if she had known of it, would have disinherited him. It was effectually concealed, and he had a daughter pretty well grown when I had anything to do with the case. His wife had died but a little while before. He was recalled home to his mother, whose health was believed to be failing, and knowing that he would have to remain there some time, he wished his child put in a boarding-school, as a place of safe care for her, and under a false name, to still conceal her identity while his mother lived. He came to me, as his lawyer, to so dispose of her, under a solemn pledge of my word of honor that I would keep his secret. That was the girl I confided to Mrs. Honey, and her father was Mr. Wilbour, the signer of the telegram I have just read. Further documentary evidence, if needed, is in my office."
"Oh, Malcolm! forgive me!" cried his wife, throwing herself into his arms.
Sam entered in time to be both amazed and delighted by this tableau. When he could claim his master's attention, he drew him aside and told him in an undertone:
"Dat strange ole woman what come hyer las' night done come agin, sah. She outside 'n' say she jes want to see you a minnit, but she mus' see you. She say she got lettahs fo' you, sah, 'n' wun't gib 'em to nubbudy else."
"Show her in here, Sam."
"Yes, sah."
Rutherford had raised his voice in giving the order, and Plowden looked up at him inquiringly as Sam left the room. The lawyer bent down to him and whispered: "Mrs. Plowden, Number One."
The
