tain agreeable ardor, "I have
been talking with Aunt Mary."

"Indeed?"

"And about you."

"Really?"

"When I say that I have been talking with Aunt Mary, and about
you," I continued in a grieved tone, for I do not like jerky
responses, "I wish you to understand that it was in connection
with no ordinary topic. Phyllis,"--I spoke with the utmost
tenderness--"can you not guess the nature of our discussion?"

Phyllis was equal to the emergency; her embarrassment had
disappeared. "I am glad," she said, "that your conversation so
far as it related to me was out of the ordinary. I suppose I may
ask what the topic was--that is, if you don't mind telling."

This was approaching the serious. "Phyllis, I was telling Aunt
Mary that I loved you and wished to make you my wife."

A flash, half merry, half angry, came to her eye. "That was
thoughtful of you. Is it customary for gentlemen in the city,
when they think they love a girl, to honor all her relations with
their confidence before they speak to the girl herself?"

I took her hand. She made the slightest motion to withdraw it,
and permitted it to remain in my grasp. "Phyllis," I said with
all earnestness, "do not misunderstand me. I sought you at the
house. You were absent. Your Aunt Mary and I have been friends
from childhood, and it was only natural that out of my heart I
spoke the words that were in my mind. I told her that I loved
you, just as at that moment I might have shouted it from the
housetop. My heart was full of you and I had to speak. Can't you
understand?"

The girl was still obdurate, and she spoke with some petulance.
"If that is the case, perhaps it is just as well that it was Aunt
Mary and not one of the neighbors."

"Dear little Phyllis, you are not angry with me because I love
you? You cannot remain angry with me because I confessed my love
before I met you to-day? If you had only seen with what
applications of cold water your aunt rewarded my confidence, you
would pity and not reproach me."

For a minute the girl was silent. Then she asked softly: "How
long have you known that you loved me?"

"Must I answer that question candidly and unreservedly?"

"Unreservedly and candidly."

I seized her other hand and held her firmly. "About fifty
minutes."

She laughed, rather joyously I thought. "And having loved me for
fully fifty minutes, you wish to make me your wife? Confiding
man!"

"Little girl," I said tenderly, "let us be serious. If