He was vastly amused at the man who complained to him because a certain young relative of the poet would persist in quitting the room by one door at the moment he entered it by another. “The woman ought to do her part!” quoted the poet with great gusto from the plaint of the complainer who was too dense to read the significant scorn of the lady’s conduct to him. * * * * * A mother boasted to him that she had never done anything to have her daughters married. “But thee ought,” retorted the poet. When one day a young man had come with a span of fine horses and carried off one of his nieces to drive, Whittier commented on the event in his most humorous vein. He didn’t think she cared for the young man in the least, he said. The span was the attraction. As for what her uncle thought of her going, she cared nothing at all. He didn’t know what he could do about it--except find a young man with three horses! * * * * * But for all the poet’s jesting, love’s young dreamers were very interesting persons to him. He once said with a laugh which yet had conviction under it, that he would have made a good husband--if he’d been caught young! * * * * * He was confident that in many instances he could have made better matches for certain young persons than they had done for themselves. And with his vision that nothing escaped, his keen perceptions, his infinite tact, it came about more than once that he turned the wavering balance of fancy in the head--or heart--of some young man, or woman, and, like destiny, resolved uncertainty into joy. And where he was thus successful, the lovers themselves had no inkling of his co-operation and outsiders could only surmise that the poet’s skill might have had play. Only once in this skillful manipulation of the susceptible heart of youth did the credit for his insinuations recoil upon his own head. A betrothed couple came one day to pay him a visit. In the course of this the young man congratulating himself upon the wisdom and success of his choice, openly commended his host for having suggested it to him--and this in the presence of the intended bride! It was in vain that the embarrassed poet hastened to repudiate the charge, of which he could never have been guilty in the manner of which he was accused. This only made the young man more insistent. Whittier’s quickness of retort must have opened to him some way of escape from the situation. And he had a consolation; for in telling the story, he added that during this conversation the young woman gazed at her betrothed as if she believed wisdom would die with him. * * * * * On the day of the wedding of the poet’s niece at his Amesbury home the whole house was in commotion. The poet in a vain attempt to restore order was overheard saying with authority to his cousin, Mr. Cartland, who had become infected with the general restlessness: