“Well, if you aren’t a sight for gods and little fishes!” exclaimed a deep voice, and Patty saw Chickering Channing gazing at her from the hall below. “Come on down,—let me eat you.”
As Patty reached the last step, he grasped her lightly with his two hands and swung her to the floor beside him.
“Well!” exclaimed Patty, decidedly taken aback at this performance. “Will you wait a minute while I revise my estimate of you?”
“For better or worse?”
“That sounds like something—I can’t think what—Declaration of Independence, I guess.”
“Wrong! It’s from the Declaration of Dependence. But why revise?”
“Oh, I’ve ticketed you all wrong! Mona said you were shy! Shy!”
“Methinks the roguish Mona was guying you! Shyness is not my strong point. But, if you prefer it should be, I’ll cultivate it till I can shy with the best of them. Would you like me better shy?”
“Indeed I should, if only to save me the trouble of that revision.”
“Shy it is, then.” Whereupon Mr. Channing began to fidget and stand on one foot, then the other, and even managed to blush, as he stammered out, “I s-say, Miss F-Fairfield,——”