He hurried to show the paragraph to Anna, but Anna wouldn't even smile. She was a woman, and therefore she compressed her lips, sorrowfully, and said: "Oh--_poor_ Miss Starkweather!" To which Henry responded with a much more vigorous compression of his own lips, and the apt correction: "Oh, no--poor Mr. Mix!"
He carried his congratulations to his aunt in person; she received them characteristically. "Humph!... Pretty flowery language.... Well, you don't need to send me any present, Henry; I didn't send _you_ one."
"When's the happy event to be?" he inquired, politely.
"And do you know where you're going for your honeymoon?"
"I don't like that word," said Mirabelle. "It sounds mushier than a corn-starch pudding. And besides, it's nobody's business but his and mine, and I haven't even told _him_ yet. I'm keeping it for a surprise."
"Oh!" said Henry. "That's rather a novel idea, isn't it?"
"Humph!" said Mirabelle, dryly. "The whole thing's novel, isn't it? But I'm obliged for your coming up here, Henry. I didn't suppose you had enough interest in family matters to be so nosey, even."
Later in the week, Henry encountered Mr. Mix, and repeated his congratulations with such honeyed emphasis that Mr. Mix began to stammer. "I appreciate all you say, Henry--but--come here a minute." He drew Henry into a convenient doorway. "I'm sort of afraid, from the way you act, there's something in the back of your mind. I've thought, sometimes, you must have lost sight of the big, broad principles behind the work I'm doing. I've been afraid you've taken my work as if it was directed personally against _you_. Not that I've ever heard you _say_ anything like that, but your manner's been ... well, anyway, you're too big a man for that, Henry. Now about this new scheme of yours. It's my feeling that you're dodging the law by sliding in the back door. It's my official duty to look into it. Only if we _do_ have to put a stop to it, I want you to realize that I sympathize with any personal loss you may have to suffer. Personally, I'm grieved to have to take this stand against John Starkweather's nephew. You understand that, don't you?"
Henry nodded assent. "Why, certainly. Your motives are purer than the thoughts of childhood. The only thing I _don't_ understand is what all this has to do with my congratulating you?"