"Yes, Miss Fancy."
She stamped her small foot. "There's no 'Miss' about it. How stupid you are—when you see I'm in a hurry, too! Call me 'Fancy.'"
"Y-yes—Fancy," stammered Palmerston, blushing furiously, shutting his eyes and dropping his voice to a whisper.
"That's better. . . . What does it feel like? Pleasant?"
"V-very pleasant, miss—Fancy, I mean. It—it'll come in time," pleaded Palmerston, still red to the eyes.
"That's right, again. Because I want you to marry me, Pammy dear."
"Well! the owdacious!" exclaimed Mrs Bowldler in a kind of hysterical titter, snatching at her bodice somewhere over the region of her heart. Fancy paid no heed to her.
"Only we must make a runaway match of it," she went on, "for there's no time to lose, it seems."
For answer Palmerston burst into a flood of tears.
"There now!" Mrs Bowldler of a sudden became serious. "You might have known he's too soft to be teased. . . . Oh, be quiet, do, Palmerston! Think of your namesake!"