“How do you like that, my lord?” she inquired, her eyes beaming with delight.

“Dreadful!” said Henry.  “Got to the moonlight stage already—­poor Bliss!”

“Poor Bliss indeed,” retorted Mrs. Upton.  “Blissful Bliss, you ought to call him.  Shall we go?”

“Shall we go?” echoed Upton.  “If I fell off the middle of Brooklyn Bridge, would I land in the water?”

“I don’t know,” laughed Mrs. Upton.  “You might drop into the smoke-stack of a ferry-boat.”

“Of course we’ll go,” said Upton.  “I’d go yachting with my worst enemy.”

“Very well.  I’ll accept,” said Mrs. Upton, and she did.  The sail was a great success, and everything went exactly as the skilful match-maker had wished.  Bliss looked well in his yachting suit.  The appointments of the yacht were perfect.  The afternoon was fine, the supper entrancing, and the moonlight irresistible.  Miss Meeker was duly impressed, and as for the doctor, as Upton put it, he was “going down for the third time.”

“If you aren’t serious in this match, my dear, throw him a rope,” he pleaded, in his friend’s behalf.

“He wouldn’t avail himself of it if I did,” said Mrs. Upton.  “He wants to drown—­and I fancy Molly wants him to, too, because I can’t get her to mention his name any more.”

“Is that a sign?” asked Upton.

“Indeed yes; if she talked about him all the time I should be afraid she wasn’t quite as deeply in love as I want her to be.  She’s only a woman, you know, Henry.  If she were a man, it would be different.”

The indications were verified by the results.  August came, and Mrs. Upton invited Miss Meeker to spend the month at the Uptons’ summer cottage at Skirton, and Bliss was asked up for “a day or two” while she was there.

“Isn’t it a little dangerous, my dear?” Upton asked, when his wife asked him to extend the hospitality of the cottage to Bliss.  “I should think twice before asking Walter to come.”

“How absurd you are!” retorted the match-maker.  “What earthly objection can there be?”

“No objection at all,” returned Upton, “but it may destroy all your good work.  It will be a terrible test for Walter, I am afraid—­breakfast, for instance, is a fearful ordeal for most men.  They are so apt to be at their very worst at breakfast, and it might happen that Walter could not stand the strain upon him through a series of them.  Then Molly may not look well in the mornings.  How is that?  Is she like you—­always at her best?”

Mrs. Upton replied with a smile.  It was evident that she did not consider the danger very great.

“They might as well get used to seeing each other at breakfast,” she said.  “If they find they don’t admire each other at that time, it is just as well they should know it in advance.”