d aside and took hold of another chair,--not his: it a little thing,
but it interpreted her.

"Well?" said he, in a hoarse tone.

Just then she moved, as I said, and laid one hand on the back of a
chair: it was the only symptom of emotion she showed; her voice was as
childish-clear and steady as before.

"You want to go, Frank, and I thought you would rather be married to me
first; so I came to find you and tell you I would."

Frank sprang to his feet like a shot man; I cried; Josephine stood
looking at us quite steadily, her head a little bent toward me, her eyes
calm, but very wide open; and Mr. Bowen gave an audible grunt. I suppose
the right thing for Frank to have done in any well-regulated novel would
have been to fall on his knees and call her all sorts of names; but
people never do--that is, any people that I know--just what the
gentlemen in novels do; so he walked off and looked out of the window.
To my aid came the goddess of slang. I stopped snuffling directly.

"Josephine," said I, solemnly, "you are a brick!"

"Well, I should think so!" said Mr. Bowen, slightly sarcastic.

Josey laughed very softly. Frank came back from the window, and then the
three went off together, she holding by her father's arm, Frank on his
other side. I could not but look after them as I stood in the hall-door,
and then I came back and sat down to read the paper Frank had flung on
the floor when he came in. It diverted my mind enough from myself to
enable me to sleep; for I was burning with self-disgust to think of
my cowardice. I, a grown woman, supposed to be more than ordinarily
strong-minded by some people, fairly shamed and routed by a girl Laura
Lane called "Dora"!

In the morning, Frank came directly after breakfast. He had found his
tongue now, certainly,--for words seemed noway to satisfy him, talking
of Josephine; and presently she came, too, as brave and bright as ever,
sewing busily on a long housewife for Frank; and after her, Mrs. Bowen,
making a huge pin-ball in red, white, and blue, and full of the trunk
she was packing for Frank to carry, to be filled with raspberry-jam,
hard gingerbread, old brandy, clove-cordial, guava-jelly, strong
peppermints, quinine, black cake, cod-liver oil, horehound-candy,
Brandreth's pills, damson-leather, and cherry-pectoral, packed in with
flannel and cotton bandages, lint, lancets, old linen, and cambric
handkerchiefs.

I could not help laughing, and was about to remonstrate,