"Is it a punishment to you to know that I think you very handsome?" he said, turning round and looking full into her face.
"It is disagreeable to me—very, to have any such subject talked about at all. What would you think if I began to pay you foolish personal compliments?"
"What I say isn't foolish; and there's a great difference. Clara, I love you better than all the world put together."
She now looked at him; but still she did not believe it. It could not be that after all her boastings she should have made so gross a blunder. "I hope you do love me," she said; "indeed, you are bound to do so, for you promised that you would be my brother."
"But that will not satisfy me now, Clara. Clara, I want to be your husband."
"Will!" she exclaimed.
"Now you know it all; and if I have been too sudden, I must beg your pardon."
"Oh, Will, forget that you have said this. Do not go on until everything must be over between us."
"Why should anything be over between us? Why should it be wrong in me to love you?"
"What will papa say?"