A Palpitating Interview.
By Mrs. E. Baumer Williams.
Y DEAR JACK.—Your letter of yesterday has completely staggered me. Of course you will rely on me for the 25th, although your extraordinary secretiveness about the affair fills me with the gloomiest forebodings. Oh! Jack, Jack! has the fascinating Kitty really succeeded in bowling you over at last? Her efforts on board the Wilmots' yacht would enable me to credit anything with regard to her powers of persuasion—but you, no I'll not believe it! You used to be blessed with the usual average of intelligence. I hereby chuck Miss Kitty overboard, neck and crop, and await your answer to this. And be so good as to remember that I am only human, and don't keep me in suspense. Who is 'she'? What is her name? Where did you meet her? And where, oh! where have all the matrimonial prejudices fled?
"If I am to be 'best man' on the 25th, it will never do for me to appear on the scene in such a condition of benighted ignorance upon current events; so I insist on full and detailed particulars by the next post, pending which I reserve my congratulations.—Yours most anxiously,
"P.S.—If it turns out that it is Kitty Simmonds, after all, you can look up another best man, for I'll not assist at the ceremony in any capacity."
While converting this characteristic epistle into pipe-lights I pondered my reply. I was sorely tempted to keep up the mystery a little longer, but I finally rejected the idea. It would be a shame to Kitty Simmonds, whom I remember to have rather liked. I never could understand Winthrop's ill-nature about that poor girl. She certainly never made love to him, though she undoubtedly singled me out as an object for civility. To tell the truth, it had more than once crossed my mind that there might be a spice of jealousy at the bottom of it, for I should probably have forgotten her existence if he were not in the habit of constantly offering her up in his caustic way. The study of motive is a very curious one.
Well, but Kitty had nothing whatever to do with my plans for the 25th. So I, too, determined to "chuck her overboard," and decided to relate my plain, unvarnished tale to my old chum, determining that he should have no cause to grumble at paucity of detail. After all, he was too good a fellow to tease.
With my feet in a pair of comfortable slippers, a pipe in my mouth, and peace and goodwill in my heart, I poked my fire and settled down to transcribe a full and open confession on a sheet of foolscap which lay ready to hand.
"My dear Winthrop,—Your promise to see the last of me on the 25th is a shade grudging, perhaps, but I shall rely on you all the same.
"Why, you idiot, K. S. married young Lee Simms, whom she used to snub so unmercifully during that memorable cruise, about three months ago!
"I have known it for an age, but could not resist fooling you to the top of your bent, whenever you raved on the subject.
"Well, my news astonished you a little, eh? Read the following true and particular account of my proceedings; I am not afraid but that the conditional congratulations will follow.—Yours always,
I have a very old friend named Stelling, who has a private asylum for lunatics at Ashmead.
He is the most delightful, open-handed fellow in the world; everyone has a good word for him, and though many years my senior, he and I are capital friends.
His dinners are good; his dances—well, just what dances should be, plenty of pretty girls and waltzing men, plenty of room, a good floor, a good band, and a hearty welcome. His wife is just such another kind, genial soul as himself.
The house is divided into two parts: one reserved exclusively for patients, the other
