Me, the only girl among all those boys and men! I really was tickled to have won over them all. I scrambled out of the laprobe as fast as I could and hurried on to the ice to receive the blue ribbon and box of candy that was being held out to me. First prize, Miss McCourt!
Harvey came over after supper to call.
“You really were wonderful, Lizzie,” he said. “Mother and I quarreled about you all the way home, but I think you were superb. I just knew I loved you when I saw you out there on the ice before all those people—not even perturbed—it was glorious—and I know now that I want to marry you.”
“Why, Harvey....”
This was not the first proposal I had had, but it was the first to move me deeply.
Harvey had always seemed to me different from the other men of the town, and he was different. He would come over to play the piano for all my family in the evening, seeming to love us all. He would join in the general fun without trying to monopolize me, like most of the other men.
He wasn’t so terribly much older than I, under two years, but he seemed older. He was always so considerate and unselfish. Though shy, he carried his years with a dignified air of responsibility. I think it was this, added to his sweetness, and musical talent that made him stand out from the others. Anyway, deep down in my heart I must have known for a long time that I was just waiting for Harvey.
“But, Harvey, what will we live on? If your family doesn’t approve of me, what can you do?”
“I think Father knows how I feel—he’ll help us. He said something the other day about sending me out to see about some mining property he’s part owner of at Central City, Colorado. We’ll go West and make our fortune overnight in gold. People are doing it all the time out there!”
Love and adventure all at once!