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Show jSuiI0SS! OF ' W KENNETT MELISSA WILL NOT BE SCORCHED BY A SUNNY DISPOSITION. Mrs. Merriwid came into the room where her maternal maiden aunt Jane was Industriously tatting, and her head was drooping and her step weary. She passed her hand across her half-closed eyes and sank into the easiest chair, with a deep drawn sigh. "What's the matter now?" asked Aunt Jane. "A touch o' sun, a touch o' sun," replied re-plied Mrs. Merriwid, faintly. "Mr. Gladden has been beaming cm me for the last three-quarters of an hour and there wasn't a shady spot in the room. He's the most refulgent person I ever did see, but basking In his rays for more than a half hour gives me pronounced pro-nounced pangs of anguish. Would you mind having the blinds down, dearie? And I'd. like to have Hilda toll an imitation of a passing bell on the lowest cup of the gong, if she isn't too busy. Let's talk of graves and worms and epitaphs. Would you rather rath-er be buried or cremated?" "How absurd you are, Melissa," Aunt Jane reproved. "That's the kind of conversation I want," said Mrs. Merriwid. "Go on, dearie." ( "I won't do anything of the sort," said the elder lady. "Some of these days you'll be sorry you 7er said such things." "I hope so," replied. Mrs. Merriwid, meekly. "I trust there are sadder days in store. You're doing nicely. of the United States at the last census cen-sus and he'll begin to imagine he'a got a fortune beyond the dreams ol avarice and nearly up to Morgan's, and his wife will find that it begins to wear on her in time, like her lasl year's dresses." "It's the optimists that do things," said Aunt Jane. "I know," agreed her niece. "Hope ' springs eternal and it's darkest just before dawn and the longest lana must have a turning. It's likewise an ill wind that blows nobody good; but you can't make me believe that a bad egg is going to improve in course ol time and be good, or that it won't cloud up and rain some day when 1 am wearing my best hat. And if 1 lose my purse with twenty dollars' worth of money in it, I don't conH dently expect to have it returned tc me intact within twenty-four hours; furthermore, I won't dismiss the mat ter from my mind with a gay laugh. I'm not a pessimist, at that I know one jovial, hearty, smiling, haw-haw ing optimist that I'd like to see with a raging toothache, anyway, and the last part of that sunny-tempered via ionary's name is Gladden." Mrs. Merriwid spoke with such ua usual petulance that Aunt Jane look' ed at her in surprise. Then Mrs. Mer riwid laughed. "The wretch proposed," she said. "You don't meant to tell me!" ex claimed Aunt Jane. "I didn't mean to," said Mrs. Merriwid, Mer-riwid, "but I suppose I might as well "I Could See Him Making Light of All My Trouble." But, honest, auntie dear, do you like 'em as cheerful as Mr. Gladden?" "Of course I do," Aunt Jane answered. an-swered. "A person can't be too cheerful." cheer-ful." "I disagree with you," said . Mrs. Merriwid, emphatically. "I think Mr. Gladden is. Of course, being a promoter, pro-moter, he's got to be more or less Yes, he wanted me to marry him and he couldn't see anything ahead of ui but ineffable bliss. I could see quit a number of things. I could see him making light of all my troubles even if he didn't magnify his own, which your cheery optimist has a way ol doing, dearie. It's the easiest thing in the world to be philosophical ovei a broken leg when it's the other fellow's, fel-low's, and it's cheaper to encourage your forlorn and disconsolate brothei man with a few words of cheer than it is to lend him money. Well, 1 didn't mention all this. X merely told him that it could never, never be. "'Well,' he said, cheerfully, 'I certainly cer-tainly hoped that it could, but ol course if it can't, I'll have to make the best of it. Maybe it's just as well after all.' "If you expect me to like optimists as far gone as that, you're going to be disappointed," concluded Mrs. Merriwid. Merri-wid. (Copyright. 1912. by W. G. Chapman.) sanguine and encouraging but, in my opinion, he runs it about sixteen hundred feet into the ground. I'm not a prospective investor, whatever he may think, and I refuse to believe that everything happens for the best. I want to have a presentiment that the worst is yet to come, once in a while. If I wanted to take a perpetually rose-colored rose-colored view of existence, I'd wear pink goggles. Imagine that man as a husband!" ' "I hardly think that is a proper thing for a lady to do," Aunt Jane opined. "Fudge!" said her niece. "As if a lady would do anything else! He'd be everlastingly galumphing in and exasperating you with his idiotic optimism, opti-mism, no matter what happened. If the cook left at the most inconvenient time, he'd tell you to cheer up because it would be all the same in a hundred years and that there were just as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it and that care killed a cat and away boys with melancholy and that sort of piffle. If the laundress ruined your very best waist, he'd grin and say that there was no use crying over spilled milk and that every cloud has a silver lining and in trouble to be troubled is to have your trouble doubled." dou-bled." i I'm sure I think that's a very sensible sen-sible way to look at things," observed Aunt Jane. "Fretting over a thing never helped it yet, and it's always better to be hopeful and look at the bright side." "Suppose it hasn't any bright side," argued Mrs. Merriwid. "Suppose it's a slab of soft coal. And what a woman wom-an wants In a husband is sympathy. If she's lying down with a sick headache, head-ache, she doesn't want him to jolly her up and tell her she just imagines the ache part. And if he can't come across with the price of a new hat once in a while, it Isn't any satisfaction satisfac-tion to her to be told she'll be sporting sport-ing diamond tiaras by next fall on the strength of hfS scheme to establish aerial road houses for the flying machine ma-chine trade. You give Mr. Gladden a l-atent clothes pin and the populiilpa |