He caught her quaint humor, and, taking her hand and dropping on one knee, said: "Lottie Marsden, child of luxury, the prize which the proudest covet, will you leave your elegant home,—will you turn your back upon the world which is at your feet,—and go with me away to the far West, that you may become a poor, forlorn home missionary?"
"Yes, Frank, in your home; but never forlorn while I have you to laugh at, and never poor while I possess your big, unworldly heart."
"Have I any rights now?" he exclaimed; and, springing up, he exercised them to a degree that almost took away her breath.
"Here, behave yourself," she said. "The idea of one who had plumed himself on his heroic self-sacrifice acting so like an ordinary mortal! You have had more kisses now than you ought in a week. If we are to be so poor, we ought to begin practising economy at once."
"You are the most beautiful and spicy compound that nature ever fashioned," he exultingly replied, holding her off, devouring her with his eyes. "I plainly foresee that you can fill the poorest little home with light and music."
"Yes, I warn you, before it's too late, that I can never become a solemn, ghostly sort of a missionary."
"O, it's too late now, I assure you," he said: "my mind is made up."
"So is mine,—that you shall take a long nap, while I mount guard."
"Nap, indeed!" he said, indignantly. "When the gates of pearl bang after one with their musical clangor, and shut out forever the misery of earth, will one's first impulse on the threshold of heaven be to take a nap?"
"What extravagant language! You ministers talk much too familiarly of heaven, and such things."