"She shall go to Boston to-morrow, if she wants to," said I, but this time Belle demurred.
"I think she seems likely to have a good time here this winter, and we may as well let her have her fling."
The prophecy was fulfilled. In spite of the supreme jealousy of the other girls, who could not say mean enough things about her, Mary became quite the rage with the young men.
One Sunday afternoon Will Axworthy called. He is short and broad, has reddish hair and a chronic blush hardly to be looked for in the Ward McAllister of Lake City. Too nervously did he plant himself in my frisky spring rocker, and therefore involuntarily did he present the soles of his boots to the assembled family, while his head bumped the wall, to the huge delight of our boys!
Undaunted by that inauspicious beginning, he came again the next Sunday, smoked my best cigars, and talked lumber, the one subject upon which he is posted, for he was the manager of a mill here.
He stayed to supper that evening and went with Mary to church afterward. Then he called for her with a cutter the first bright day, and took her sleigh riding. The embryo wrinkle left Belle's forehead.
"Do you really think he means anything?" said she.
"Don't be too sanguine about it. Nowadays, young men pay a girl a great deal of attention with nothing in their heads but a good time."
"Still, Axworthy's no boy. He's thirty if he's a day, and he has a good salary, and can afford to marry whenever the mood takes him."
"Let us hope and pray that it may take him soon!"