“Yes, I quite understood that,” answered Arthur. “Let us run our horses for a bit. I have a fancy to do that.”
Dorothy understood. She joined him in a quarter mile stretch, and then he suddenly reined in his horse and faced her.
“It was right here, Dorothy, after a run like that,” he said, “that you told me I might call you Dorothy. Now I ask you to let me call you Wife.”
The girl hesitated. Presently she said:
“I have made up my mind to be perfectly true with you. I don’t know whether I had thought of this or not, at any rate I have tried not to think of it.”
“But now that I have forced the thought upon you, Dorothy? Is it yes, or no?”
Again the girl paused in thought before answering. Her dogs, seeing that she was paying no attention to them, broke away in pursuit of a hare. She suddenly recovered her self-possession. She whistled through her fingers to recall the hounds, and when they returned, crouching to receive the punishment they knew they deserved, she bade them go to heel, adding: “You’re naughty fellows, but you haven’t been kept under control, and so I forgive you.” Then, turning to Arthur she said,
* * * * * * * *
On their return to the house Arthur was mindful of his duty to Aunt Polly, guardian of the person of Dorothy South, and, as such endowed with authority to approve or forbid any marriage to which that eighteen year old young person might be inclined, before attaining her twenty first year.