as that I
care for you very much." Her voice broke here, but she caught her breath
and went right on. "I wanted you to know it somehow, and since I could
not make you know it by ways clever girls might, I thought I would tell
you plainly. It really amounts to the same thing; don't you think so?
and I know you 'll keep my secret. You need n't say anything. I know you
've nothing to say and may never have. That makes no difference. You owe
me nothing merely because I care for you. Don't pity me. I'm not so much
ashamed as you 'd suppose. It all seems so natural when it's once said.
You need n't be afraid of me. I shall never say this again or trouble
you at all. Only be a little good to me; that's all."

She delivered this little speech almost in one breath, with headlong,
explosive utterance, as if it were something she had to go through
with, cost what it might, and only wanted somehow to get out the words,
regardless, for the time, of their manner or effect. She ended with
an hysterical sob, and Arthur felt her hand tremble on his arm as she
struggled with an emotion that threatened to overcome her. But it was
over almost instantly; and without giving him a chance to speak, she
exclaimed, with an entire alteration of tone and manner:--

"Did you see that article in the 'Gazette' this morning about the craze
for collecting pottery which has broken out in the big cities? Do you
suppose it will reach here? What do you think of it?"

Now it was perfectly true, as she had told him, that Arthur had nothing
whatever to say in response to the declaration she had made; but all
the same it is possible, if she had not just so abruptly diverted the
conversation, that he would then and there have placed himself and all
his worldly goods at her disposal. He would have done this, although
five minutes before he had had no more notion of marrying her than the
Emperor of China's daughter, merely because every manly instinct cried
out against permitting a nice girl to protest her partiality for him
without meeting her half-way. Afterward, when he realized how near
he had come to going over the verge of matrimony, it was with such
reminiscent terror as chills the blood of the awakened sleep-walker
looking up at the dizzy ridge-pole he has trodden with but a hair's
breadth between him and eternity.

During the remainder of the way to Maud's door the conversation upon
pottery, the weather, and miscellaneous topics was incessant,--almost