"My clever, sweet, little dignified girl!" said Jim. "Julia, do you know that you are the most fascinating woman in the world? I never saw any one like you!"
"I—Oh, Jim!" was all that Julia said, but her dimples and the nearness of the blue eyes helped the stammered words.
"Among all the chattering, vapid girls I know," pursued Jim, "you stand utterly alone, you with your ambitions, and your wiseness! By George! when I think what you have made of yourself, I could get down and worship you. I feel like a big spoiled kid beside you! I've always had all the money I could spend, and you, you game little thing, you've grubbed and worked and made things do!"
"I never had any ambition as high as marrying you," Julia said, with the mysterious little smile that at once baffled and enchanted him. "When I think of it, it makes me feel giddy, like a person walking in a valley who found himself set down on top of a mountain! I never thought of marriage at all!"
"But you are going to marry me, sweet, aren't you?" Jim asked anxiously. "And you are happy, dear? For I feel as if I would die of joy and pride!"
"Oh, I'm happy!" Julia said, and instantly her lip quivered, and her eyes brimmed with tears. She jumped to her feet, and caught him by the hand. "Come on!" she said. "We mustn't be so long!"
"But darling," said Jim, infinitely tender, "why the tears?"
For answer she caught his coat in her shabbily gloved little hands.
"Because I love you so, Jim," she faltered, trying to smile. "You don't know how much!" Her voice had dropped to a whisper, and for a moment her eyes looked far beyond him, down into the valley, and at the iron-cold bay with its racing whitecaps. Then she took his hand, and they began to descend the steps.
"I may tell my mother, Julie?" Jim asked joyously. "And Aunt Sanna? And do you know that Julia is one of my favourite names—"