ou when you were squalling in your
cradle."

"Oh! ... Did I squall, really?"

"_Squall?_ Sometimes it was tummy and sometimes it was temper. Between
them you yelled like a Comanche," said this astonishing lover.

Mary Virginia tilted her head back, adorably.

"It was very, very noble of you to mind me--under the circumstances,"
she conceded, graciously.

"Believe me, it was," agreed Laurence. "I didn't know it, of course,
but even at that tender age my fate was upon me, for I _liked_ to mind
you. Even the bawling didn't daunt me, and I adored you when you
resembled a squab. Yes, I was in love with you then. I'm in love with
you now. My girl, my own girl, I'll go out of this world and into the
next one loving you."

"Then why," she asked reproachfully, "haven't you said so?"

"Why haven't I said what?"

"Why, you know. That you--loved me, Laurence." Her rich voice had sunk
to a whisper.

"Good Lord, haven't I been saying it?"

"No, you haven't! You've been merely asking me to marry you. But you
haven't said a word about loving me, until this very minute!"

"But you must know perfectly well that I'm crazy about you, Mary
Virginia!" said the boy, and his voice trembled with bewilderment as
well as passion. "How in heaven's name could I help being crazy about
you? Why, from the beginning of things, there's never been anybody
else, but just you. I never even pretended to care for anybody else.
No, there's nobody but you. Not for me. You're everything and all,
where I'm concerned. And--please, please look up, beautiful, and tell
me the truth: look at me, Mary Virginia!"

The white-clad figure moved a hair's breadth nearer; the uplifted
lovely face was very close.

"Do I really mean that to you, Laurence? All that, really and truly?"
she asked, wistfully.

"Yes! And more. And more!"

"I'll be the unhappiest girl in the world: I'll be the most miserable
woman alive--if you ever change your mind, Laurence," said she.

There was a quivering pause. Then:

"You care?" asked the boy, almost breathlessly. "Mary Virginia, you
care?" He laid his hands upon her shoulders and bent to search the
alluring face.

"Laurence!" said Mary Virginia, with a tremulous, half-tearful laugh,
"Laurence, it's taken this one short winter to teach me, too. And--you
were mistaken, utterly mistaken about those symptoms of mine. It
wasn't tummy, Laurence. And it wasn't temper. I think--I am sure--that
what I was trying so hard to sq