o him because it seemed rather
familiar--"I only want to live until my daughter Melisande is happily
married to some nice, steady young man. Do this for me, Dr. Anderson,"
I said, "and I shall be your lifelong debtor." He promised to do his
best. It was then that he mentioned about the cushion in the small of
the back after meals. And so don't forget to tell cook about the
bread-sauce, will you, dear?

MELISANDE. I will tell her, Mother.

MRS. KNOWLE. That's right. I like a man to be interested in his food.
I hope both your husbands, Sandy and Jane, will take a proper interest
in what they eat. You will find that, after you have been married some
years, and told each other everything you did and saw before you met,
there isn't really anything to talk about at meals except food. And
you must talk; I hope you will both remember that. Nothing breaks up
the home so quickly as silent meals. Of course, breakfast doesn't
matter, because he has his paper then; and after you have said, "Is
there anything in the paper, dear?" and he has said, "No," then he
doesn't expect anything more. I wonder sometimes why they go on
printing the newspapers. I've been married twenty years, and there has
never been anything in the paper yet.

MELISANDE. Oh, Mother, I hate to hear you talking about marriage like
that. Wasn't there ever _any_ kind of romance between you and Father?
Not even when he was wooing you? Wasn't there ever one magic Midsummer
morning when you saw suddenly "a livelier emerald twinkle in the
grass, a purer sapphire melt into the sea"? Wasn't there ever one
passionate ecstatic moment when "once he drew with one long kiss my
whole soul through my lips, as sunlight drinketh dew"? Or did you talk
about bread-sauce _all_ the time?

JANE (eagerly). Tell us about it, Aunt Mary.

MRS. KNOWLE. Well, dear, there isn't very much to tell. I am quite
sure that we never drank dew together, or anything like that, as Sandy
suggests, and it wasn't by the sea at all, it was at Surbiton. He used
to come down from London with his racquet and play tennis with us. And
then he would stay on to supper sometimes, and then after supper we
would go into the garden together--it was quite dark then, but
everything smelt so beautifully, I shall always remember it--and we
talked, oh, I don't know what about, but I knew somehow that I should
marry him one day. I don't think _he_ knew--he wasn't sure--and then
he came to a subscription dance one even