The girl did not say anything. Her face was as pale as ever, but there was a light in the depths of her cool gray eyes.
“Listen to me once more, Minnie!” implored the young fellow by her side. “You say that none of these other girls will suit me, and I knew that before you said it. I knew that you are the only girl I ever wanted. You promised me your friendship the last time we talked this over, and now I’ve had a chance to tell you how much I need a wife I have hoped you would look at the matter in a clearer light.”
She said nothing. He gave a hasty glance backward and he saw that her father and her grandfather were only a hundred yards or so behind them. The reddening sunset on their right cast lengthening shadows across the road. The spring day was drawing to an end, and the hour had come when he was to learn his fate forever.
“Minnie,” he urged once more, “don’t you think it is your duty—as a friend, you know—to give me the wife I ought to have?”
She looked at him, and laughed nervously, and then dropped her eyes.
“Oh, well,” she said at last, “if I must!”
(1900)