Hence it was, as I have said, that Bliss was invited to Skirton for a day or two.  And the day or two, in the most natural way in the world, lengthened out into a week or two.  There were walks and talks; there were drives and long horseback rides along shaded mountain roads, and when it rained there were mornings in the music-room together.  Bliss was good-natured at breakfast, and Molly developed a capacity for appearing to advantage at that trying meal that aroused Upton’s highest regard; and finally—­well, finally Miss Molly Meeker whispered something into Mrs. Upton’s ear, at which the latter was so overjoyed that she nearly hugged her young friend to death.

“Here, my dear, look out,” remonstrated Upton, who happened to be present.  “Don’t take it all.  Perhaps she wants to live long enough to whisper something to me.”

“I do,” said Molly, and then she announced her engagement to Walter Bliss; and she did it so sweetly that Upton had all he could do to keep from manifesting his approval after the fashion adopted by his wife.

“I wish I was a literary man,” said Upton to his wife the next day, when they were talking over the situation.  “If I knew how to write I’d make a fortune, I believe, just following up the little romances that you plan.”

“Oh, nonsense, Henry,” replied Mrs. Upton.  “I don’t plan any romances—­I select certain people for each other and bring them together, that is all.”

“And push ’em along—­prod ’em slightly when they don’t seem to get started, eh?” insinuated Upton.  “Well, yes—­sometimes.”

“And what else does a novelist do?  He picks out two people, brings them together, and pushes them along through as many chapters as he needs for his book,” said Henry.  “That’s all.  Now if I could follow your couples I’d have a tremendous advantage in basing my studies on living models instead of having to imagine my realism.  I repeat I wish I could write.  This little romance of Mollie and Walter that has just ended—­”

“Just what?” asked Mrs. Upton.

“Just ended,” repeated Upton.  “What’s the matter with that?”

“You mean just begun,” said Mrs. Upton, with a sigh.  “The hardest work a match-maker has is in conducting the campaign after the nominations are made.  When two people love each other madly, they are apt to do a great deal of quarrelling over absolutely nothing, and I’m not at all sure that an engagement means marriage until the ceremony has taken place.”

“And even then,” suggested Henry, “there are the divorce courts, eh?”

“We won’t refer to them,” said Mrs. Upton, severely; “they are relics of barbarism.  But as for the ending of my romance, my real work now begins.  I must watch those two young people carefully and see that their little quarrels are smoothed over, their irritations allayed, and that every possible difference between them is adjusted.”

“But you and I didn’t quarrel when we were engaged,” persisted Upton.