"If kissing could make me safe, I should be."

"I wish you'd give me something to kiss you for; and that's the name of the day next Spring we're to wed."

"Isn't it enough if we say next Spring?"

"Quite enough, if you mean next Spring. But I don't know whether you do; and more do you know. And for that matter you never have said next Spring. If you say the word, then you'll keep your word; but you haven't, and patient though I am, I can't help wondering sometimes why you don't."

"You're not the only one that wonders for that matter."

"Of course I'm not. Cousin Joe wonders every time I see him, and father wonders, and mother does more than wonder. In fact it's getting to be a bit awkward and unreasonable."

"I know it is, Johnny. I never thought it would be so difficult when the time came."

"So you grant that the time has come—that's something."

"I do grant it. I dare say a man doesn't quite realise what a tremendous thing it is for a girl to lose her liberty like this."

He was irritable.