"Mean?" cried the Girl. "Mean?" Her tousley yellow hair seemed fairly electrified with astonishment, and her big blue eyes brimmed suddenly with uproarious delight. "Oh, of course," she added contritely, "it may be mean for the person who sews the seam, but it's heaps of fun for the cloth, because after awhile, you know, Pompous Peter will discover that there isn't any winter girl whom he likes better, and in the general excitement of the discovery he'll remember only the long, long seam—three happy summers—and forget altogether that he never tied any knot. And then! And then!" her cheeks began to dimple. "And then—just as he begins triumphantly to gather me in—all my yards and yards and yards of beautiful freedom fretted into one short, puckery, worried ruffle—then—Hooray—swish—slip—slide—out comes the thread—and Mr. Peter falls right over bump-backward with surprise. Won't it be fun?"
"Fun?" snapped the Journalist. "What a horrid, heartless little cynic you are!"
The Girl's eyebrows fairly tiptoed to reach his meaning. "Cynic?" she questioned. "You surely don't mean that I am a cynic? Why, I think men are perfectly splendid in every possible way that—doesn't matter to a woman. They can build bridges and wage wars, and spell the hardest, homeliest words. But Peter makes life so puzzling," she added wryly. "Everybody wants me to marry Peter; everybody says 'slow but sure,' 'slow but sure.' But it's a lie!" she cried out hotly. "Slow is not sure. It is not! It is not! The man who isn't excited enough to run to his goal is hardly interested enough to walk. And yet"—her forehead crinkled all up with worry—"and yet—you tell me that 'quick' isn't sure, either. What is sure?"
"Nothing!" said the Journalist.
She tossed her head. "All the same," she retorted, "I'd rather have a man propose to me three years before, rather than three years after, I'd made up my mind whether to accept him or not."
"Don't—marry—Peter," laughed the Journalist.
"Why not?" she asked—so very bluntly that the Journalist twisted a bit uneasily.
"Oh—I—don't—know," he answered cautiously. Then suddenly his face brightened. "Any trout fishing up in your brooks about the first of May?" he asked covertly.
Again the knowledge of her mother's mother's mother blazed red-hot in the Girl's cheeks. "Y—e—s," she faltered reluctantly, "the trout-fishing is very generous in May."
"Will Peter be there?" persisted the Journalist.