I'd
_love_ to be rich."

It always seems to make Jack blue and grumpy when I talk like that. I
suppose that is one reason why he never asked me to settle down in
life as a country doctor's wife. Another was, no doubt, that I always
nipped his sentimental sproutings religiously in the bud.

Three weeks ago Alicia wrote to me, asking me to spend the winter with
her. Her letters always make me just gasp with longing for the life
they describe.

Jack's face, when I told him about it, was so woebegone that I felt a
stab of remorse, even in the heyday of my delight.

"Do you really mean it, Kitty? Are you going away to leave me?"

"You won't miss me much," I said flippantly--I had a creepy, crawly
presentiment that a scene of some kind was threatening--"and I'm
awfully tired of Thrush Hill and country life, Jack. I suppose it is
horribly ungrateful of me to say so, but it is the truth."

"I shall miss you," he said soberly.

Somehow he had my hands in his. _How_ did he ever get them? I was sure
I had them safely tucked out of harm's way behind me. "You know,
Kitty, that I love you. I am a poor man--perhaps I may never be
anything else--and this may seem to you very presumptuous. But I
cannot let you go like this. Will you be my wife, dear?"

Wasn't it horribly straightforward and direct? So like Jack! I tried
to pull my hands away, but he held them fast. There was nothing to do
but answer him. That "no" I had determined to say must be said, but,
oh! how woefully it did stick in my throat!

And I honestly believe that by the time I got it out it would have
been transformed into a "yes," in spite of me, had it not been for a
certain paragraph in Alicia's letter which came providentially to my
mind:

Not to flatter you, Katherine, you are a beauty, my dear--if
your photo is to be trusted. If you have not discovered that
fact before--how should you, indeed, in a place like Thrush
Hill?--you soon will in Montreal. With your face and figure
you will make a sensation.

There is to be a nephew of the Sinclairs here this winter. He
is an American, immensely wealthy, and will be the catch of
the season. A word to the wise, etc. Don't get into any
foolish entanglement down there. I have heard some gossip of
you and our old playfellow, Jack Willoughby. I hope it is
nothing but gossip. You can do better than that, Katherine.

That settled Jack's fate, if there ever had been any d