"Oh, Mr. Murray! I'm not Kittie; I'm so sorry; but I thought—I meant—I don't know just what. I'll tell her to come down and I think she will," Kat cried incoherently, and vanished with a complicated and wonderful gesture of her hands, that might have passed for a supplication for forgiveness, a benediction, or total despair, or most anything.
"Go down stairs," were her first words, as she rushed into the room where Kittie sat, and cast herself on to the bed with a hysterical laugh. "I've been, and gone, and done, and had a proposal from Mr. Murray, and you better go down quick. Oh, it's too funny, and he's dreadfully in earnest; there's something about a sweet possibility, and you'd better go down and listen to it."
"What do you mean?" cried Kittie, starting up, and dropping her book, with a vague idea that Kat had lost her senses.
"He thought I was you. Oh, it's too funny! and he is out there by the geranium-bed waiting for you," cried Kat, convulsed with laughter; and Kittie dropped into her chair, all trembling.
"Oh, Kat! how could you?"
"Bless you, I didn't do anything except promise to send you down, and you better go. There, you look like a peach. Put this little posy in your hair and go on."
"Oh, I can't," cried Kittie, all blushes and shyness.
"Yes, you can, you must; it will never do in the world!" exclaimed Kat with decision; so with many pauses, much hesitation and trembling, Kittie went, and appeared shyly before her lover with down-cast eyes, and all the sweet color fled from cheek and lips.
Of course, no one said anything, but somehow the secret crept into the gay company, and Kittie found her ordeal so trying that she threatened to go home.
"Of course we'll go as soon as Ralph comes," said Kat, who had her own reasons for wanting to get away then; so Kittie promised to wait those few days. It was very evident that Kat was going to meet him on the road, for one lovely afternoon, a few days later, she was seen to stroll away, dressed with particular care in a pale blue lawn, with bunches of forget-me-nots in her hair and belt, and a very big hat that conveniently and becomingly shaded her eyes, and flapped in the breeze as she walked.