had often wondered how Gordon would propose. He was a proud,
high-strung boy. If he was humble, and pleaded and pleaded with the hurt
look in his eyes that I knew so well, I thought I would accept him; and
if we could get to mother in the crowd, perhaps we could announce the
engagement at supper-time. It seemed to me that it would be a very
wonderful thing to be engaged on one's eighteenth birthday. So many
girls were not engaged till nineteen or even twenty. But if he was
masterful and high-stepping, as he knew so well how to be, I had decided
to refuse him scornfully with a toss of my head and a laugh. I could
break his heart with the sort of laugh I had practised before my mirror.

It is a terrible thing to have a long-anticipated event finally overtake
you. It is the most terrible thing of all to have to settle once and
forever with _man_.

Gordon came for me at eleven o'clock. I was flirting airily at the time
with our village Beau Brummel, who was old enough to be my grandfather.

Gordon slipped my little hand through his arm and carried me off to a
lonely place in the conservatory. For a second it seemed a beautiful
relief to be out of the noise and the glare--and alone with Gordon. But
instantly my realization of the potential moment rushed over me like a
flood, and I began to tremble violently. All the nervous strain of the
evening reacted suddenly on me.

"What's the matter with you to-night?" asked Gordon, a little sternly.
"What makes you so wild?" he persisted, with a grim little attempt at a
laugh.

At his words, my heart seemed to turn over within me and settle heavily.
It was before the days when we discussed life's tragedies with our best
men friends. Indeed, it was so long before that I sickened and grew
faint at the very thought of the sorrowful knowledge which I kept secret
from him.

Again he repeated, "What's the matter with you?" but I could find no
answer. I just sat shivering, with my lace scarf drawn close across my
bare shoulders.

Gordon took hold of a white ruffle on my gown and began to fidget with
it. I could see the fine thoughts go flitting through his eyes, but when
he spoke again it was quite commonplacely.

"Will you do me a favor?" he asked. "Will you do me the favor of
marrying me?" And he laughed. Good God! he _laughed_!

"A favor" to marry him! And he asked it as he might have asked for a
posie or a dance. So flippantly--with a laugh. "_A favor!_" And Dolly
Leonard lay