“He wouldn’t have thanked you if you had, my little girl,” replied Kate with a smile.
“Does he dislike little girls of nineteen so much? How unique!”
“No; but he came to make love to the big girl; that is why.”
Ethel sat bolt upright. “You don’t mean it!” she said, with her hazel eyes wide open.
“He did,” was the sententious reply. Kate was busy warming the backs of her hands now.
“Goodness me! And I lay here all the while, and never had so much as a premonition. Oh, what was it like? Did he get on his knees? Was it very, very funny? Make haste and tell me.”
“Well, it was funny, after a fashion. At least, we both laughed a good deal.”
“How touching! Well?”
“That is all. I laughed at him, and he laughed—I suppose it must have been at me—and he paid me some quite thrilling compliments, and I replied, ‘Tuesdays, from two to five,’ like an educated jackdaw—and—that was all.”
“What a romance! How could you think of such a clever answer, right on the spur of the moment, too? But I always said you were the bright one of the family, Kate. Perhaps one’s mind works better in the cold, anyway. But I think he might have knelt down. You should have put him close to the register. I daresay the cold stiffened his joints.”