"Dorothy!"
"I am, mother, really and really." She looked up for a moment, then once more she buried her face in her mother's lap.
"Dorothy dear, what do you mean?"
"Oh! he was so funny when he proposed," gurgled Dorothy, "and I just said 'shucks.' That seemed to please him."
"Dorothy dear, are you joking?"
"Not unless John Dene's a joke, mother dear," she replied. "Wouldn't it be funny to call him Jack?" Then she told her mother of the happenings of the afternoon.
"Please say you're glad," she said a little wistfully.
"I'm—I'm so surprised, dear," said Mrs. West, stroking her daughter's head gently; "but I'm glad, very glad."
"I thought you would be, and I shall be Lady Dene. Everybody at the Admiralty says he'll get a title, and you'll have to say to the servants, 'Is her ladyship at home?' You won't forget, mother, will you?" She looked up with mock anxiety into her mother's face.
Mrs. West smiled down at Dorothy; her eyes too were wet.