“Yes, I do,” she said.
“You do. Well, do you think he feels the same way about you?”
“Yes,” with not quite the same promptness, but still defiantly.
“You feel sartin of it, do you?”
She stamped her foot. “Yes! yes! yes!” she cried. “Oh, do say what you came to say, and end it!”
Her uncle rose to his feet.
“Why, I guess likely I’ve said it,” he observed. “When two people care for each other like that, they ought to be married, and the sooner the better. I knew that you’d been lonesome and troubled, maybe; and some of the friends you used to have had kind of dropped away—busy with other affairs, which is natural enough—and, you needin’ sympathy and companionship, I was sort of worried for fear all this had influenced you more’n it ought to, and you’d been led into sayin’ yes without realizin’ what it meant. But you tell me that ain’t so; you do realize. So all I can say is that I’m awful glad for you. God bless you, my dear! I hope you’ll be as happy as the day is long.”
His niece gazed at him, bewildered and incredulous. This she had not expected.
“Thank you,” she stammered. “I did not know—I thought—”
“Of course you did—of course. Well, then, Caroline, I guess that’s all. I won’t trouble you any longer. Good-by.”