‘But would you like to love me more, Liz?’
‘How could I love you more?’
‘Would you like to have the right to care for me—the right to creep after me in your quiet way wherever I might happen to go—the right to walk alongside of me, with your hand in mine, up to the harvesting home to-night; eh, Liz?’
The girl half understood her cousin’s meaning, but she was too modest not to fear she might be mistaken. Larry could never wish to take her, blind and helpless, for his wife.
‘Larry, speak to me more plainly; I don’t catch your meaning quite.’
‘Will you marry me then, Liz, and live along of mother and me to the end of your life?’
‘Marry you!—Be your wife!—Me! Oh, Larry, you can’t mean it! never.’
‘I do mean it,’ replied her cousin with an oath; ‘and I’ll take you as soon as ever you’ll take me if you will but say the word.’
‘But I am blind, Larry.’