Producing from Heaven knows what antique pin-cushion a hat- pin that would have easily impaled the May Girl like a butterfly against the wall, Rollins completed the presentation. But the end it seemed was not yet. Fumbling through his pockets he produced a small wad of paper, and from that small wad of paper a large old-fashioned seal ring with several strands of silk thread dangling from it.
"Of course at such short notice," beamed Rollins, "one couldn't expect to do much. But if you don't mind things being a bit old-timey,—this ring of my great uncle Aberner's—if we tie it on—perhaps?"
Whereupon, lashing the ring then and there to the May Girl's astonished finger, Rollins proceeded to tuck the May Girl's whole astonished hand into the crook of his arm, and start off with her—still grinning—to promenade the long sheltered glassed-in porch, across whose rain-blurred windows the storm raged by more like a sound than a sight.
The May Girl's face was crimson!
"Well it was all your own idea, you know, this getting engaged!" taunted Kennilworth.
It was not a very good moment to taunt the May Girl. My Husband saw it I think even before I did.
"Really, Rollins," he suggested, "you mustn't overdo this arm-in-arm business. Not all day long! It isn't done! Not this ball-and-chain idea any more! Not this shackling of the betrothed!"
"No, really, Rollins, old man," urged young Kennilworth, "you've got quite the wrong idea. You say yourself you've never been engaged before, so you'd better let some of us wiser guys coach you up a bit in some of the essentials."
"Coach me up a bit?" growled Rollins.
"Why, you didn't suppose for a minute, did you," persisted young Kennilworth tormentingly, "that there was any special fun about being engaged? You didn't think for a moment, I mean, that you were really going to have any sort of good time to-day? Not both of you, I mean?"