"Suppose we try it."
"Try what?"
"Being a couple."
Fanny suddenly caught, from the laughing eye, the young man's meaning, and began to color.
"I see you understand, my own Fanny," observed Mr. Ralph, "and I expected nothing less from a young lady of your quickness. What say you? It is not necessary for me to say that I'm desperately in love with you."
"Oh, not at all necessary!" replied Fanny, satirically, but with a blush.
"I see you doubt it."
"Oh, not at all."
"Which means, as usual with young ladies, that you don't believe a word of it. Well, only try me. What proof will you have?"
Fanny laughed with the same expression of constraint which we have before observed, and said: