y, what do you
mean?"

Dr. Eben hesitated a single instant. He had not intended to do this
thing, but the occasion had been too much for him. "I may as well do it
first as last," he said; "she can but refuse me:" and, in a very few
manly words, Dr. Eben Williams straightway asked Hetty Gunn to marry
him. He was not prepared for what followed, although in a soliloquy,
only a few days before, he had predicted it to himself. Hetty laughed
merrily, unaffectedly, in his very face.

"Why, Dr. Williams!" she said, "you can't know what you're saying. You
can't want to marry me: I'm not the sort of woman men want to marry"--

He interrupted her. His voice was husky with deep feeling.

"Miss Gunn," he said, "I implore you not to speak in this way. I do know
what I am saying, and I do love you with all my heart."

"Nonsense," answered Hetty in the kindliest of tones; "of course you
think you do: but it is only because you have been shut up here two
whole months, with nothing else to do but fancy that you were in love. I
told you it was time we went home. Don't say any thing more about it.
I'll promise you to forget it all," and Hetty laughed again, a merry
little laugh. A sharp suspicion crossed the doctor's mind that she was
coquetting with him. In a constrained tone he said:

"Miss Gunn, do you really wish me to understand that you reject me?"

"Not at all," said Hetty, gayly. "I wish you to understand that I
haven't permitted you to offer yourself. I have simply assured you that
you are mistaken: you'll see it for yourself as soon as we get home. Do
you suppose I shouldn't know if you were really in love with me?"

"I didn't know it myself till a week ago," replied Dr. Eben: "I did not
understand myself. I never loved any woman before."

"And no man ever asked me to marry him before," answered the honest
Hetty, like a child, and with an amused tone in her voice. "It is very
odd, isn't it?"

Dr. Eben was confounded. In spite of himself, he felt the contagion of
Hetty's merry and unsentimental view of the situation; and it was with a
trace of obstinacy rather than of a lover's pain in his tones that he
continued:

"But, Miss Gunn, indeed you must not make light of this matter in this
way. It is not treating me fairly. With all the love of a man's heart I
love you, and have asked you to be my wife: are you sure that you could
not love me?"

"I don't really think I could," said Hetty, "but I shall not try, because
I