Agatha looked at Kate in wonder.
"You amaze me," she said. "Why, he regards you as if he would devour you. He hasn't proposed for your hand, you say? Surely you're not giving him proper encouragement!"
"She isn't giving him any, further than allowing him to be around," said Nancy Ellen.
"Do enlighten me!" cried the surprised Agatha. "How astonishing! Why, Kate, my dear, there is a just and proper amount of encouragement that MUST be given any self-respecting youth, before he makes his declarations. You surely know that."
"No, I do not know it!" said Kate. "I thought it was a man's place to speak up loud and plain and say what he had to propose."
"Oh, dear!" wailed Agatha, wringing her thin hands, her face a mirror of distress. "Oh, dear, I very much fear you will lose him. Why, Katherine, after a man has been to see you a certain number of times, and evidenced enough interest in you, my dear, there are a thousand strictly womanly ways in which you can lend his enterprise a little, only a faint amount of encouragement, just enough to allow him to recognize that he is not—not—er—repulsive to you."
"But how many times must he come, and how much interest must he evince?" asked Kate.
"I can scarcely name an exact number," said Agatha. "That is personal. You must decide for yourself what is the psychological moment at which he is to be taken. Have you even signified to him that you—that you—that you could be induced, even to CONTEMPLATE marriage?"
"Oh, yes," said Kate, heartily. "I told his mother that it was the height of my ambition to marry by the time I'm twenty. I told her I wanted a man as tall as I am, two hundred acres of land, and at least twelve babies."
Agatha collapsed suddenly. She turned her shocked face toward Nancy Ellen.