THE MATCH-MAKERS

      THE sun, after a short course, was about to go to rest. It tried to gild the spires and the snow-covered gable roofs, and as it was not remarkably successful in this to-day, it sank hastily behind a gray cloud. Stars here and there peeped out at their windows, but the mist, rolling up from the mountains, spoiled their view, so they closed their windows again and went to sleep. Besides, their glimmer this evening was superfluous, for in an hour thousands and thousands of lights, kindled by happy mortals, would shine through the December night. Christmas, the merry time, had come, and a multitude of visible angels, bringing joy, were crowding the streets and alleys of the old city.
      Beings of flesh and bone, and cheeks rosy with the frost, were also hurrying through the streets. Most of them carried some carefully wrapped object, which later, when it lay beneath the brightly lighted fir-tree, would be greeted with a cry of joy. Everything was in haste to-night. No groups of gossiping servants hindered the stream of passers-by, and if two people happened to recognize one another, they hurried past with a hasty greeting. Little by little it became more quiet on the street, the shop doors were closed, and the windows in the dwelling-houses grew bright. Here and there the muffled shouts of the children came forth from the houses, and the watchmen with echoing footsteps paced the pavements.
      Through the door of an old patrician house entered a tall man, wearing a broad-brimmed hat and a long cloak. A white poodle followed him. Having reached the second story, the man opened a door, the plate of which bore the name of a celebrated artist, and after a few moments he entered a comfortable room, illuminated by soft lamp-light. A huge gray cat rose from her cushion, which lay near the stove, and with a low purr greeted her master as he entered. Then she showed the same politeness to the poodle, and laid herself down again. Poodle and pussy had known each other for many years, and lived together, not like “cats and dogs,” but like two excellent chums who have been together at school.
      The man took off his hat and cloak, and went to the window. In the opposite house flickered the lights of a Christmas tree, and the shadows of the children and grown-people stood out on the lowered shades. The man looked at the lighted window for a long time, then turned away, brushed his hand across his eyes, and said softly to himself, “I am alone.”
      The poodle, as if he would have liked to contradict this, approached him, and rubbed his cold nose against his hand; but his master paid no attention to the caress. “I am alone, “he repeated. Then he sat down in his easy-chair, and fixed his eyes on the floor.
      No bright pictures were they which passed before the lonely man's mind:— a melancholy childhood, a youth full of cruel privations, wearisome struggling and disenchantments of every sort. Honor and wealth had at last fallen to his share, but in the time of need he had forgotten how to enjoy himself. Youth was past; in his dark hair the frost of early autumn already shimmered, — and he was alone.
      Then, as he sat thus brooding over the past, he suddenly heard close to him the words: “Old friend, shall we chat together? The master is asleep.”
      “I am willing,” came the answer. “ You begin.”
      “That is my poodle and my cat,” said the man to himself, “and I am dreaming. To be sure, on Christmas eve, animals have the power of speech; I used often to hear that when I was young. If only I do not wake up before I learn what the two have to say to one another!”
      “Friend Pussy,” the poodle began, “do you know that for some time the master has not quite pleased me? He has neglected me. I will forgive him for not having me sheared in the summer, but it hurts me deeply that he almost never claims my services.”
      “Yes,” replied the cat, “he is no longer as he used to be. Just think, yesterday he even forgot to give me my breakfast. At last I shall have to return to my former life of catching mice. That would be hard.”
      “Do you know, my dear,” said the poodle, what would be the best thing for us and for him? If we had a woman in the house who would look after our rights and keep things in order.”
      “Oh!” exclaimed the cat, “that is a doubtful suggestion. The wife would probably look on the friends of her husband's youth with disapproval. We have both seen our best days. Suppose the young woman should show us the door, what then, brother?”
      “But I know one who would not do that,” replied the poodle, “and you know her too.”
      The cat pointed with her fore-paw to a little picture on the wall. It was a woman's head with large, dark, childlike eyes. “Do you mean that one there?”
      “Yes,” said the poodle. “She would be the woman for us. She is friendly toward me, that I know; and she doesn't dislike you, for I have seen with my own eyes how lately, when you creep around her window, looking for sparrows, she sets out a cup of milk for you. And our master —”
      “She likes him too,” said the cat, filling out the sentence. “That I know; for when she is sitting by the window, sewing, and the master passes along on the street, she turns her pretty white neck after him, and blushes. And when people blush — “
      “I know what that means,” interrupted the poodle. “We are both agreed, and that is the main point. She must be our mistress.”
      “But the master?” asked the cat, doubtfully.
      “That will be all right,” said the poodle, confidently. “But hush! He is moving; he is waking up.”
      The sleeper leaped from his chair, and looked suspiciously at his companions. But they lay, to all appearance lost in sweet dreams, curled up like snail-shells on their cushions, and never stirred. And with his hands behind his back, the man strode up and down the room, like one who is striving to settle some weighty question.
      Let us leave the solitary man, with his poodle and cat, and mount the stairs as far as they go, — and they reach to the roof, under which, in narrow chambers, poor, worried people rest from their day's labor. In one of these little rooms, — the cleanest and neatest of all, — sat two women, one old, the other young. Before them on a table stood two smoking cups and a cake cut in pieces. The maiden had a delicate, pale face, and two large dark eyes, which looked out into the world sometimes merry and sometimes sad. The young girl was a seamstress; the old woman a laundress by trade, and the younger one's aunt. She had come from her damp home in the suburbs to receive the presents which her niece intended for her: two or three pounds of sugar and coffee and a knitted hood of soft gray wool, which the old woman stroked from time to time caressingly with her wrinkled hand. The cake on the table grew perceptibly smaller, for the aunt ate as though she had fasted for three days; and when she could take no more, she, after some resistance, allowed the seamstress to wrap the rest in paper to take away with her.
      “Child,” said the old woman, as she was getting ready to go home, “you would be wise to go to sleep early this evening, for in the holy Christmas night all sorts of strange things happen, — and you are so entirely alone! Don't you feel at all afraid?”
      The maiden shook her head with a laugh. “What sort of strange things, auntie?”
      “Did you ever pass by a church at twelve o'clock on Christmas eve?” asked the laundress. “No? Oh, if I should tell you! But I will not make you timid. A maiden can learn, too, on Christmas eve, who will be her husband; but that is a dangerous story.”
      The little one pricked up her ears. “What must one do to find out that?” she asked.
      “Child,” said the old woman, warningly, “you will not try it?”
      “No, I am not so inquisitive; but I should like to know how one must go to work to find it out.”
      The aunt sat down again and began to display her wisdom. “If a maiden sits all sole alone in her room on Christmas eve, and lays the table for two, her future husband will appear to her. But he has no flesh and blood; it is an apparition, and vanishes when the cock crows. Therefore the maid would do well to have a cock near her in a bag. And if the uncanny guest should cause her to be afraid, she would only have to pinch the cock; then he would cry out, and the ghost would disappear. Many say it is the Evil One who assumes the form of the lover. I do not really believe that, but it is a dangerous game, at any rate. I went through terrible suffering when I tried the trick.”
      “Really?” asked the maiden, with curiosity. “Did you try the magic yourself? And did somebody come to you?”
      “No,” said the old woman; “nobody came, and so I knew that I should be an old maid; and that I really am. But it troubles me sorely to think I have told you all this. Truly, you will not try it? Well now, my child, thank you very much for the Christmas gifts, and hold the light for me, for it's as dark as pitch outside, and the stairs are so steep.”
      The seamstress accompanied the old woman with the lamp, and then went back to her silent room. The hot drink had made her little face glow, and as she busied herself in a matronly way, putting the plates and dishes in their places, she would have been a charming sight for anybody's eyes; but there was no one who could refresh himself with a look at the young blossom.
      What her aunt had been telling her went round and round in her head. At first she laughed at the Christmas magic, then she grew thoughtful, and finally — it was surely only a harmless joke — she brought out a white cloth, spread it on the table, and laid it for two. There, now he can come. To be sure, she had no cock, but she wore a little cross around her neck, and every sort of ghost must vanish before the cross. She sat down, folded her little hands in her lap, and called up to mind the men whom she knew, — the curly-haired shopkeeper in the grocery shop, who always weighed out the sugar and coffee for her so generously; the sergeant, who occasionally met her and greeted her so respectfully; and the writer in the house opposite, who played on his flute every evening “If I were a bird,” —but none of these was the right one. At last she came to one more, but he was a serious, fine gentleman, who could hardly remember the poor seamstress in the garret.
      Two years before, when her mother was still living, he met her for the first time on the stairs, had stopped and looked at her with the most gentle eyes. On the following day he had spoken to her, and asked her to sit for him as a model for a picture. At first she had objected, for she had heard horrible stories about painters and models; but the gentleman had spoken so courteously to her! And so she went, accompanied by her mother, to his studio. Afterward she had seen the finished picture too. It represented an old man with a harp, and by his side sat a young girl, and the young girl was the little seamstress — her very self. When the picture had gone out into the world, the painter had placed a large banknote in her work-basket. She had really not wished to take it, but as her mother then lay on her death-bed she did not dare to return the gift, and the money went just far enough to bury her mother and to get a little cast-iron cross for her grave. She had never spoken to the painter since that time, but she saw the serious man every day, and she had formed a friendship with his two companions, — a poodle and a pussy-cat, — and was kind to the animals whenever she had an opportunity.
      The lamp blazed up and started her out of her dreams. She saw the two plates before her, and she smiled, and then gave a sigh. “You are a thoroughly silly creature,” she said softly, and rose to put away the dishes again.
      Then there came a knock at the door. Heaven help us, if the Christmas magic is really no fairy tale! And the door opened, and the apparition which appeared in the doorway was like the painter to a dot. The poor little girl sank trembling into her chair, and hid her face in her hands.
      “Good evening,” said the ghost in a deep voice; and then he came nearer, sat down by the seamstress, and took her hand. Ghosts usually have ice-cold hands, but the one which grasped the trembling maiden's was full of warm life.
      And then the ghost began to speak. He spoke of the lonely, joyless existence he led, and then many other things about love and fidelity, and the maiden listened with a beating heart. If he were no ghost after all! With trembling hands she felt for the little cross she wore in her waist. Before the cross all magic is destroyed. She drew it forth and held it before the ghost.
      But he smiled, seized the cross, and said: “Poor child, you do not believe my words. I swear to you on the cross which I hold in my hands that I am true and honest in my intentions toward you. Will you be my wife?”
      Then the little one's soul rejoiced like a lark. No, it was no apparition to vanish into mist at the crowing of a cock; it was one of Adam's sons, with flesh and bone. His mouth, which her lips sought, was warm, and his heart beat violently against her breast.
      O blessed, merry Christmas!
      Then there was a scratching at the door, and when it was opened the poodle came in with a bound, and behind him was seen the cat. They came to bring their congratulations. The poodle jumped up, now on his master and then on the maiden, whining for joy. The cat arched her back, and purred like a spinning-wheel. That the two people had found each other was the work of the wise creatures. They were proud of it, but said nothing about it, for true merit is rewarded in silence.