"What!" cried Mrs. Willoughby; "you don't—"
"Now, Kitty, I think it's very unkind in you, when I want all your sympathy, to be so horrid."
"Well, tell it your own way, Minnie dearest."
Minnie sat for a time regarding vacancy with a soft, sad, and piteous expression in her large blue eyes; with her head also a little on one side, and her delicate hands gently clasped in front of her.
"ANOTHER MAN!"
"You see, Kitty darling, he took me out riding, and—he took me to the place where I had met him, and then he proposed. Well, you know, I didn't know what to say. He was so earnest, and so despairing. And then, you know, Kitty dearest, he had saved my life, and so—"
"And so?"
"Well, I told him I didn't know, and was shockingly confused, and then we got up quite a scene. He swore that he would go to Mexico, though why I can't imagine; and I really wish he had; but I was frightened at the time, and I cried; and then he got worse, and I told him not to; whereupon he went into raptures, and began to call me no end of names—spooney names, you know; and I—oh, I did so want him to stop!—I think I must have promised him all that he wanted; and when I got home I was frightened out of my poor little wits, and cried all night."
"Poor dear child!" exclaimed Mrs. Willoughby, with tender sympathy. "What a wretch!"