"Oh, I have not offered you any tea!" she exclaimed, remorsefully. "Please come into the school-house. My friend will be back by this time, and she will be quite angry at my want of hospitality."
Ralph, picturing to himself a middle-aged school-mistress as the 'principal,' glanced at his watch hesitatingly; but seeing a look of disappointment beginning to cloud Lucy's face, rose promptly.
Why should he not go in to tea with her? It was the last time he would see her, having an opportunity of listening to the sweet young voice; and at the thought a sudden pang shot through his heart. He had spent his life following a will-o'-the-wisp. Leslie Lisle, even if he found her, could never be his. Why should he not ask this pretty, innocent-eyed girl—
"Lucy," he said, suddenly, and yet gently.
She started at the sound of the Christian name, and turned her eyes upon him questioningly.
"Don't be frightened," he said, still more gently, but with an earnest gravity that thrilled her. "And yet I am afraid I shall frighten you. Do you know what it is I am going to ask you? No, you cannot guess. Lucy, since last Saturday I have been thinking of you every day!"
"Of me?" The words left her lips in a whisper, and the color deepened in her cheeks.
"Of you!" he said, fervently. "I love you, Lucy. Will you be my wife?"
She stepped back, her eyes opening wide, her parted lips tremulous. But when he took her hand she did not shrink back further, and she did not attempt to take the hand away.