



Produced by David Garcia, Martin Pettit and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Kentuckiana Digital Library)






MAKING PEOPLE HAPPY

[Illustration]

MAKING PEOPLE HAPPY

by

THOMPSON BUCHANAN

Author of A WOMAN'S WAY

Frontispiece by HARRISON FISHER

NEW YORK

W.J. WATT & COMPANY

PUBLISHERS


COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY W. J. WATT & COMPANY

_Published September_

PRESS OF BRAUNWORTH & CO.

BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS

BROOKLYN, N.Y.




MAKING PEOPLE HAPPY




CHAPTER I


The bride hammered the table desperately with her gavel. In vain! The
room was in pandemonium.

The lithe and curving form of the girl--for she was only twenty,
although already a wife--was tense now as she stood there in her own
drawing-room, stoutly battling to bring order out of chaos. Usually the
creamy pallor of her cheeks was only most daintily touched with rose: at
this moment the crimson of excitement burned fiercely. Usually her eyes
of amber were soft and tender: now they were glowing with an indignation
that was half-wrath.

Still the bride beat a tattoo of outraged authority with the gavel,
wholly without avail. The confusion that reigned in the charming
drawing-room of Cicily Hamilton did but grow momently the more
confounded. The Civitas Club was in full operation, and would brook no
restraint. Each of the twelve women, who were ranged in chairs facing
the presiding officer, was talking loudly and swiftly and incessantly.
None paid the slightest heed to the frantic appeal of the gavel....
Then, at last, the harassed bride reached the limit of endurance. She
threw the gavel from her angrily, and cried out shrilly above the massed
clamor of the other voices:

"If you don't stop," she declared vehemently, "I'll never speak to one
of you again!"

That wail of protest was not without its effect. There came a chorus of
ejaculations; but the monologues had been efficiently interrupted, and
the attention of the garrulous twelve was finally given to the presiding
officer. For a moment, silence fell. It was broken by Ruth Howard, a
girl with large, soulful brown eyes and a manner of