you day by day and
live near you."

"Why don't you try living with me?" she retorted. "Ah, then, you meant
me when you said to Mrs. Crozier that you were going to be married?
Wasn't that a bit 'momentary'? as my mother's cook used to remark. I
think we haven't 'kept company'--you and I."

"It's true you haven't been a beau of mine, but I'd rather marry you
than be obliged to live with you," was the paradoxical retort.

"You have me this time," he said, trying in vain to solve her reply.

Kitty tossed her head. "No, I haven't got you this time, thank Heaven,
and I don't want you; but I'd rather marry you than live with you, as I
said. Isn't it the custom for really nice-minded people to marry to get
rid of each other--for five years, or for ever and ever and ever?"

"What a girl you are, Kitty Tynan!" he said reprovingly. He saw that she
meant Crozier and his wife.

Kitty ceased her work for an instant and, looking away from him into the
distance, said: "Three people said those same words to me all in one day
a thousand years ago. It was Mr. Crozier, Jesse Bulrush, and my mother;
and now you've said it a thousand years after; as with your inexpensive
education and slow mind you'd be sure to do."

"I have an idea that Mrs. Crozier said the same to you also this very
day. Did she--come, did she?"

"She didn't say, 'What a girl you are!' but in her mind she probably did
say, 'What a vixen!"'

The Young Doctor nodded satirically. "If you continued as you began when
coming from the station, I'm sure she did; and also I'm sure it wasn't
wrong of her to say it."

"I wanted her to say it. That's why I uttered the too, too utter-things,
as the comic opera says. What else was there to do? I had to help cure
her."

"To cure her of what, miss?"

"Of herself, doctor-man."

The Young Doctor's look became graver. He wondered greatly at this young
girl's sage instinct and penetration. "Of herself? Ah, yes, to think
more of some one else than herself! That is--"

"Yes, that is love," Kitty answered, her head bent over the pail and
stirring the potatoes hard.

"I suppose it is," he answered.

"I know it is," she returned.

"Is that why you are going to be married?" he asked quizzically.

"It will probably cure the man I marry of himself," she retorted. "Oh,
neither of us know what we are talking about--let's change the subject!"
she added impatiently now, with a change of mood, as she poured the
water off the pota