But after a
little while she began to notice that he was really not thinking about
what he was saying, that he seemed to have something on his mind, which
he was always on the point of saying, and then veered off to something
else. All at once he got up and remarked abruptly:

"What the dickens do I care personally for chintzes and scrim? I don't
know which is which." Nancy stared at him, thinking that he had taken
leave of his senses. He rammed his long, brown hands fiercely into the
pockets of his gray trousers, took them out again, and thrust them into
the pockets of his coat; then, as if he had taken a deep breath, and
was holding it, he said:

"Will you marry me, Nancy?"

She could not have uttered a word. She simply sat and stared at him.
Then, without being conscious of a single idea in her head, she jumped
up and made a dive for the door. He caught her hand and made her turn
around and face him. He had begun to smile, slightly, and it was that
gentle, wonderfully sweet smile, half-amused and half-tender, that made
her blush from the yoke of her gingham dress up to the edge of her hair.

"Well--will you?"

"I--I don't know," stammered Nancy; with that she promptly turned and
fled into the house.

Mr. Arnold stood regarding the screen-door with a blank expression;
then, after a moment or two, he walked away slowly. It was not until
he had reached the gate that he remembered he had left his hat on one
of the porch chairs.

* * * * *

Alma was sitting up. Wrapped in a pink blanket, with her yellow curls
pinned on top of her head, where they nodded like the heads of
daffodils, surrounded by her admiring family, including Hannah and the
trained nurse, and a perfect garden of spring flowers, which had been
arriving daily since the appearance of Mr. Arnold, she was convalescing
visibly.

"I didn't know that Mr. Arnold was back," said Alma, burying her small
nose in a huge bouquet of white lilacs. "Isn't it perfectly dear of
him to send these things, when I only met him once in my life?" Upon
which guileless remark Nancy turned a lively and hopelessly noticeable
scarlet. To make her embarrassment quite complete, Alma looked
directly into her eyes and grinned deliberately.

"I wonder why he takes such a tremendous interest in us?" she went on,
mercilessly. "I feel it in my bones. I feel as if something perfectly
scrumptious were going to happen." Mrs. Prescott laughed