not with his company manners
on or in his automobile, but at the breakfast table, and when he comes
home tired and cross, maybe. When you've got to be forbearin' and
forgivin' and--"

"He is one of my oldest and best friends--" she interrupted. Her uncle
went on without waiting for her to end the sentence.

"I know," he said. "One of the oldest, that's sure. But friendship,
'cordin' to my notion, is somethin' so small in comparison that it
hardly counts in the manifest. Married folks ought to be friends, sartin
sure; but they ought to be a whole lot more'n that. I'm an old bach, you
say, and ain't had no experience. That's true; but I've been young, and
there was a time when _I_ made plans.... However, she died, and it never
come to nothin'. But I _know_ what it means to be engaged, the right
kind of engagement. It means that you don't count yourself at all, not a
bit. You're ready, each of you, to give up all you've got--your wishes,
comfort, money and what it'll buy, and your life, if it should come to
that, for that other one. Do you care for Malcolm Dunn like that,
Caroline?"

She answered defiantly.

"Yes, I do," she said.

"You do. Well, do you think he feels the same way about you?"

"Yes," with not quite the same promptness, but still defiantly.

"You feel sartin of it, do you?"

She stamped her foot. "Yes! yes! _Yes_!" she cried. "Oh, _do_ say what
you came to say, and end it!"

Her uncle rose to his feet.

"Why, I guess likely I've said it," he observed. "When two people care
for each other like that, they _ought_ to be married, and the sooner the
better. I knew that you'd been lonesome and troubled, maybe; and some
of the friends you used to have had kind of dropped away--busy with
other affairs, which is natural enough--and, you needin' sympathy and
companionship, I was sort of worried for fear all this had influenced
you more'n it ought to, and you'd been led into sayin' yes without
realizin' what it meant. But you tell me that ain't so; you do realize.
So all I can say is that I'm awful glad for you. God bless you, my dear!
I hope you'll be as happy as the day is long."

His niece gazed at him, bewildered and incredulous. This she had _not_
expected.

"Thank you," she stammered. "I did not know--I thought--"

"Of course you did--of course. Well, then, Caroline, I guess that's all.
I won't trouble you any longer. Good-by."

He turned toward the door, but stopped, hesitated, and turned bac