I  
It is always more or less annoying to put away a wife. Even if the expense of the process be little, as in these modern days it has come to be, and even if consent thereto be mutual, as is so often the case, there are in practically all cases so many unpleasant attendant features as almost to dispose one to favor the abolishment of the marriage idea, and to condemn it as one not destined to survive in these days of modern competition. This, the more especially as regards that monogamic idea of marriage which the government at Washington harshly seeks to extend over our entire domain. As to the idea of polygamy, much may be said in its favor. Thus, if one be tired of one wife, or bored by another, in polygamy it is easy to shift the domestic scene to a third, and that in wholly good-humored fashion. The idea of divorce has about it something almost personal, as though one were displeased over some matter, as though one held in one's heart something actually of criticism, or dissatisfaction, or mayhap condemnation of one's own earlier judgment in the selection of a helpmeet.
 
Again, even after divorce has been consummated, there are so many small habits to be broken, heritage and hold-over of relations but recently sundered. For instance, if one has been accustomed every Friday evening to have shoulder of pork and boiled cabbage at table, and if only one woman has evinced ability to prepare shoulder of pork and cabbage in the proper manner, and if that woman has chanced to be one's lately current wife, it is, let us repeat, an annoying thing to find that that particular woman, after deliberately forming and fostering in one a craving for shoulder of pork and cabbage—after having established an addiction, as it were, in one's soul for that viand—has with shameless disregard of wifely duty and domestic decency obliged one to divorce her, perhaps ex vinculo, or at least ab mensa et thoro.
 
And again there may be yet other habits upon the one hand or the other which must be broken or readjusted. If one's wife—or one of one's wives—has been in the habit of leaving her tatting each afternoon on the top of the table near the best view out of the bow window, and if one sees continually this abandoned tatting permanently left there in the confusion of her permanent departure—it is annoying, let us repeat, to be reminded of a habit to whose creator we have said farewell. It causes a mental ennui constantly to be removing tatting or embroidery.
 
Or, if one's current wife has had the old-fashioned and not wholly well-bred habit of meeting one at the door of an evening, at the close of the day's labors—just as in the evening the cave woman greeted her man at the mouth of the cave to ask him what had been the fortune of the day's hunt—and if now that footfall, ill-bred, yet after all habitual—and was it wholly unwelcome, after all?—shall have ceased for ever, with what equanimity, let us ask, can we regard the memory of the woman who formed that habit and handed down an annoying expectation to her husband, impossible of fulfillment after her departure?
 
It is, as John Rawn wisely has said, true that much may be said in favor of the idea of marriage; yet upon the other hand, how very much there is that could be said against it, or at least against it as implying an unrestricted continuance, offering no change in association. The which is by way of saying something to prove John Rawn's excellently philosophical course in life to have been quite correct. There could have been no doubt as to the wisdom of his marrying Laura, his wife, in the first place, no doubt as to the wisdom of continuing the marriage relation with her for many years; but, upon the other hand, it is obvious that his idea of the timeliness of the divorce in due season was equally wise. Indeed, the only reservation in his mind in regard to this latter matter was one of censure for a woman who, having entered into the holy state of matrimony with a gentleman of his parts, had had the temerity to create in his soul an addiction for shoulder of pork and cabbage; who had left her tatting upon the table; and who, departing, had given no future address whither her tatting might be sent! Yes, Laura Rawn had been, without doubt or question, an unreasonable and unkind wife.
 
Above all it was wrong for a woman to go away and leave her late husband feeling so much alone. Why should he, John Rawn, be allowed to become conscious of a feeling of lonesomeness? Why should he be left to dread the drawing of the curtains at night, when there remained only the pound of the surf along the wall, the wail of the wind in the cornice? One chloroforms a formerly prized dog, but misses it. It is much the same way with the divorced wife. Too many unpleasant features attend the process of such separation. Any civilization worth the name ought to devise some method less annoying for this which Mr. Rawn has so fittingly described as the corollary of the marriage rite. Surely our boasted age has its drawbacks, its shortcomings!
 
 
 
 
II
 
Some men in such circumstances brood; some drink; others search out the other woman or women. John Rawn was cast in different mold. He had, in short, spoken truth when he told his wife that he had no new matrimonial plans. Situated thus, yet handicapped thus in his new-found solitude, but a few days had passed before he sent over for his daughter, Grace, and her husband, Charles Halsey; there being in his mind a plan to mitigate certain unpleasant features of his life as he now found it ordered.
 
He greeted Halsey and Grace at the door gravely, with dignity, when they came one evening in response to his invitation. They entered, just a trifle awed, as they always were, by the august surroundings of Graystone Hall, so different from their own cottage near the factory. The owner of the place looked well the part of owner here. John Rawn still was large and strong, the city had not yet much softened his lines. His hair now was whiter about the temples, but its whiteness left his appearance only the more distinguished. You scarce could have found in all the haunts of prominent citizens a better example of prominent citizen than himself, John Rawn.
 
The major domo took the wraps of the young people and vanished silently. Rawn, waiting for them in the drawing-room—not in the hall, as once he would have done—with dignity motioned them to places in his presence, even brought a low chair himself for the sad-faced, hunchbacked child which represented the Rawn succession in the third generation.
 
"Go kiss grandpa, Lola!" said Grace to her daughter; and went to show her the way. But the child, turning suddenly, only hid her face in her mother's skirt.
 
"Laura's timid," apologized the mother. The disapproval on her father's face was obvious enough. He had passed bitter hours alone, pondering over this child, hesitating whether to love it or to hate it, whether to accept it or to regard it as a blot upon his life. He had hoped a grandson, since he no longer might hope a son of his own. This crippled child was the sole Rawn succession. His pendulous lower lip trembled for a time in the self-pity which now and again came to John Rawn. It seemed hard enough that he, John Rawn, president of the International Power Company, should have no better evidence of gratitude on the part of fortune. He hated Halsey all the more.
 
 
 
 
III
 
But now he did not lack directness. "Grace," he said, "I've called you over to-night because to-morrow, as you know, is Friday."
 
"Yes, Pa."
 
"And as you know, Grace, your mother—that is to say, the late Mrs. Rawn, always had the way—in short, I may say that she induced me to depend upon—I mean to say that always she had shoulder of pork and cabbage for Friday evening. Now, I am left alone, helpless—it is too much!"
 
Mr. Rawn made no attempt wholly to conceal his just emotion. "Now look at me," he resumed. "Your mother went away, and selfishly neglected to take into consideration this habit, or to provide any means for meeting it. My chef has tried often to prepare this dish. I must say he always has failed."
 
"Why don't you write to Mrs. Rawn and ask her for the recipe?" asked young Halsey soberly.
 
"That is not practical," rejoined Mr. Rawn icily............