Nobody

"Yes," said Tom, with something very like a groan. "If one hadn't amother and sister."

"You are heathenish!"

"I'm not, at all!" returned Tom passionately. "See here, Philip. Thereis one thing goes before mother and sister; and that you know. It's aman's wife. And I've seen my wife, and I can't get her."

"Why?" said Dillwyri dryly. He was hanging over the side of thegondola, and looking attentively at the play of colour in the water; which reflecting the sky in still splendour where it lay quiet, brokeup in ripples under the gondolier's oar, and seemed to scatter diamondsand amethysts and topazes in fairy-like prodigality all around.

"I've told you!" said Tom fretfully.

"Yes, but I do not comprehend. Does not the lady in question like

Appledore as well as you do?"

"She likes Appledore well enough. I do not know how well she likes me.I never had a chance to find out. I don't think she _dis_likes me, though," said Tom meditatively.

"It is not too late to find out yet," Philip said, with even moredryness in his tone.

"O, isn't it, though!" said Tom. "I'm tied up from ever asking her now.

I'm engaged to another woman."

"Tom!" said the other, suddenly straightening himself up.

"Don't shout at a fellow! What could I do? They wouldn't let me havewhat I wanted; and now they're quite pleased, and Julia has gone home.She has done her work. O, I am making an excellent match. 'An oldfamily, and three hundred thousand dollars,' as my mother says. That'sall one wants, you know."

"Who is the lady?"

"It don't matter, you know, when you have heard her qualifications.It's Miss Dulcimer – one of the Philadelphia Dulcimers. Of course onecouldn't make a better bargain for oneself. And I'm as fond of her as Ican be; in fact, I was afraid I was getting too fond. So I ran away,as I told you, to think over my happiness at leisure, and moderate myfeelings."

"Tom, Tom, I never heard you bitter before," said his friend, regardinghim with real concern.

"Because I never was bitter before. O, I shall be all right now. Ihaven't had a soul on whom I could pour out my mind, till this hour. Iknow you're as safe as a mine. It does me good to talk to you. I tellyou, I shall be all right. I'm a very happy bridegroom expectant. Youknow, if the Caruthers have plenty of money, the Dulcimers have twiceas much. Money's really everything."

"Have you any idea how this news will touch Miss – the other lady youwere talking about?"

"I suppose it won't touch her at all. She's different; that's onereason why I liked her. She would not care a farthing for me becauseI'm a Caruthers, or because I have money; not a brass farthing! She isthe _real_est person I ever saw. She would go about Appledore frommorning to night in the greatest state of delight you ever saw anybody; where my sister, for instance, would see nothing but rocks and weeds,Lois would have her hands full of what Julia would call trash, and whatto her was better than if the fairies had done it. Things pulled out ofthe shingle and mud, – I can just see her, – and flowers, and stones, andshells. What she would make of this now! – But you couldn't set thatgirl down anywhere, I believe, that she wouldn't find something to makeher feel rich. She's a richer woman this minute, than my Dulcimer withher thousands. And she's got good blood in her too, Philip. I learnedthat from Mrs. Wishart. She has the blood of ever so many of the oldPilgrims in her veins; and that is good descent, Philip?"

"They think so in New England."

"Well, they are right, I am ready to believe. Anyhow, I don't care – "

He broke off, and there was a silence of some minutes' length. Thegondola swam along over the quiet water, under the magnificent sky; thereflected colours glanced upon two faces, grave and self-absorbed.

"Old boy," said Philip at length, "I hardly think you are right."

"Right in what? I am right in all I have told you."

"I meant, right in your proposed plan of action. You may say it is noneof my business."

"I shall not say it, though. What's the wrong you mean?"

"It seems to me Miss Dulcimer would not feel obliged to you, if sheknew all."

"She doesn't feel obliged to me at all," said Tom. "She gives a good asshe gets."

"No better?"

"What do you mean?"

"Pardon me, Tom; but you have been frank with me. By your own account, she will get very little."

"All she wants. I'll give her a local habitation and a name."

"I am sure you are unjust."

"Not at all. That is all half the girls want; all they try for. She'svery content. O, I'm very good to her when we are together; and I meanto be. You needn't look at me," said Tom, trying to laugh."Three-quarters of all the marriages that are made are on the samepattern. Why, Phil, what do the men and women of this world live for?What's the purpose in all I've been doing since I left college? What'sthe good of floating round in the world as I have been doing all summerand winter here this year? and at home it is different only in themanner of it. People live for nothing, and don't enjoy life. I don'tknow at this minute a single man or woman, of our sort, you know, thatenjoys life; except that one. And she isn't our sort. She has nomoney, and no society, and no Europe to wander round in! O, they wouldsay they enjoy life; but their way shows they don't."

"Enjoyment is not the first thing," Philip said thoughtfully.

"O, isn't it! It's what we're all after, anyhow; you'll allow that."

"Perhaps that is the way we miss it."

"So Dulcimer and I are all right, you see," pursued Tom, withoutheeding this remark. "We shall be a very happy couple. All the worldwill have us at their houses, and we shall have all the world at ours.There won't be room left for any thing but happiness; and that'llsqueeze in anywhere, you know. It's like chips floating round on thesurface of a whirlpool – they fly round and round splendidly – till theyget sucked in."

"Tom!" cried his companion. "What has come to you? Your life is not sodifferent now from what it has always been; – and I have always knownyou for a light-hearted fellow. I can't have you take this tone."

Tom was silent, biting the ends of his moustache in a nervous way, which bespoke a good deal of mental excitement; Philip feared, ofmental trouble.

"If a friend may ask, how came you to do what is so unsatisfactory toyou?" he said at length.

"My mother and sister! They were so preciously afraid I should ruinmyself. Philip, I could not make head against them. They were toomuch for me, and too many for me; they were all round me; they wereahead of me; I had no chance at all. So I gave up in despair. Women arethe overpowering when they take a thing in their head! A man's nowhere.I gave in, and gave up, and came away, and now – they're satisfied."

"Then the affair is definitely concluded?"

"As definitely as if my head was off."

Philip did not laugh, and there was a pause again. The colours werefading from sky and water, and a yellow, soft moonlight began to asserther turn. It was a change of beauty for beauty; but neither of the twoyoung men seemed to take notice of it.

"Tom," began the other after a time, "what you say about the way mostof us live, is more or less true; and it ought not to be true."

"Of course it is true!" said Tom.

"But it ought not to be true."

"What are you going to do about it? One must do as everybody else does;

I suppose."