"That's the best sort, Patty. Remember, dear, flirtation is all very well; but in the man you marry you want those qualities you've just mentioned."
"Oh, Nan, don't you be serious, too! Ken's seriousness almost finished me. And I suppose father will take the same tack! Oh, I don't want to be grown-up,—I think it's HORRID!"
Nan looked sympathetically at Patty.
"I suppose, right here," Patty went on, "I ought to burst into tears. Don't girls always cry over their first proposal? But, Nan, I feel more like giggling. I can't help it. It seems so ridiculous for Kenneth and me to go through that scene we had last evening. We've been friends so long, and then for him, all of a sudden——"
"It wasn't sudden with him, Patty. He's been in love with you for years."
"Yes, so he says. Well, Nan, I don't HAVE to marry him, do I?"
"No, of course not."
"Well, then, I'm not going to! And I don't want to be treated as if I were an ingrate because I don't! Ken is a splendid man, noble souled and all that, but I don't love him and never shall. Now please, Nan, be nice to me."
"Why, Patty, dear, I never dreamed of NOT being nice to you! I do want you to realise what you're throwing away, but if you couldn't be happy with Ken, of course, you mustn't marry him. He's a very different temperament from you, and I think myself he would be a sort of a weight on your buoyant nature. And if you're sure of your own heart, that's all there is about it. But you must tell Ken so, just as kindly as possible, for I know it will be an awful blow to the poor fellow. Did you tell him?"
"Yes, I did, but he insisted that I should think it over."