"Oh, no, no!" exclaimed I. "But what would you ask, Mabel?"
"I," answered she, "would ask the fairy to give me a husband who loved me well, if—if his name was—Jamie."
A little before supper-time we both stole on tip-toe into the professor's study. He was writing, as usual, and did not notice us. Mabel went up to his chair from behind and gently put her hands over his eyes, and asked if he could guess who it was. He, of course, guessed all the names he could think of, except the right one.
"Papa," said Mabel, at last, restoring to him once more the use of his eyes, "Jamie and I have something we want to tell you."
"And what is it, my dear?" asked the professor, turning round on his chair, and staring at us as if he expected something extraordinary.
"I don't want to say it aloud," said Mabel. "I want to whisper it."
"And I, too," echoed I.
And so we both put our mouths, one on each side, to the professor's ears, and whispered.
"But," exclaimed the old man, as soon as he could recover his breath, "you must bear in mind that life is not a play,—that—that life is not what it seems—"
"No, but Mabel is," said I.