Poor Louis! was this his romantic and poetical wooing!
'Stop, if you please, Louis!' exclaimed Mary. 'This is so very strange!' And she seemed ready to laugh.
'And—what do you say, Mary?'
'I do not know. I cannot tell what I ought to say,' she returned, rising. 'Will you let me go to mamma?'
She went; and Louis roamed about restlessly, till, on the stairs, he encountered Mrs. Frost, who instantly exclaimed, 'Why, my dear, what is the matter with you?'
'I have been proposing to Mary,' said he, in a very low murmur, his eyes downcast, but raised the next moment, to see the effect, as if it had been a piece of mischief.
'Well—proposing what?'
'Myself;' most innocently whispered.
'You!—you!—Mary!—And—' Aunt Catharine was scarcely able to speak, in the extremity of her astonishment. 'You are not in earnest!'
'She is gone to her mother,' said Louis, hanging over the baluster, so as to look straight down into the hall; and both were silent, till Mrs. Frost exclaimed, 'My dear, dear child, it is an excellent choice! You must be very happy with her!'