appen to her would be for her to marry you."

"I'm sure she'll never take me."

"You can but ask her."

"She'll say 'No.'"

"Reckon she won't--but if she does, there'll be no harm in asking her."

"You queer me, Jo--it seems a foolish thing to marry Ellen when I want
to marry you."

"But I tell you, you can never marry me. You're a stupid man, Arthur,
who won't see things as they are. You go hankering after whom you can't
get, and all the time you might get someone who's hankering after you.
It's a lamentable waste, I say, and I'll never be pleased if you don't
ask Ellen. It ain't often I ask you to do anything to please me, and
this is no hard thing. Ellen's a fine match--a pretty girl, and clever,
and well-taught--she'll play the piano to your friends. And I'll see as
she has a bit of money with her. You'll do well for yourself by taking
her, and I tell you, Arthur, I'm sick and tired of your dangling after
me."

Sec.14

Joanna had many more conversations with Arthur Alce, and in the end bore
down his objections. She used her tongue to such good purpose that by
next Sunday he had come to see that Ellen wanted him, and that for him
to marry her would be the best thing for everyone--Joanna, Ellen and
himself. After all, it wasn't as if he had the slightest chance of
Joanna--she had made that abundantly clear, and his devotion did not
feed on hope so much as on a stale content in being famous throughout
three marshes as her rejected suitor. Perhaps it was not amiss that her
sudden call should stir him into a more active and vital service.

In the simplicity of his heart, he saw nothing outrageous in her
demands. She was troubled and anxious about Ellen, and had a right to
expect him to help her solve this problem in the best way that had
occurred to her. As for Ellen herself, now his attention had been called
to the matter, he could see that she admired him and sought him out. Why
she should do so was as much a mystery as ever--he could not think why
so soft and dainty and beautiful a creature should want to marry a
homely chap like himself. But he did not doubt the facts, and when, at
the beginning of the second week, he proposed to her, he was much less
surprised at her acceptance than she was herself.

Ellen had never meant to accept him--all she had wanted had been the
mere proclaimable fact of his surrender; but during the last weeks the
focus of her plans had shifted--they had come to mean more th