"Well, what would you do with him? I don't believe any young man with proper feelings on the subject would be willing to efface himself in order to let you cherish his memory. He'd rather you would cherish him. I'm sure I should, if it were I."
"Oh!" she murmured with a startled dismay that was delicious.
"Did you happen to have any young man in particular in mind," I asked, "or is the position vacant?"
She looked up at me from under thick eyelashes in a rather bewildering way. "Quite vacant," she said.
"I'm supposed to be rather a good letter-writer," I suggested.
"I should have to be particular, if they are going to last a long time and be read over and over again," she said demurely. "Have you had any experience in writing that special kind of a letter?" (The sly puss!)
"No experience at all. But you would find me willing to learn and industrious."
"I'll consider your application," she said, with dignity. "But I haven't yet decided that on the whole I should not prefer a wedding to a package of yellow letters. I don't know. I can just see myself sitting by a window in the fading twilight, with those letters in my lap, and it looks awfully interesting. But it would be disconcerting--isn't that the right word?--if no one else saw how romantic and beautiful it was. Of course I should know myself, and that counts for a good deal, but it does seem more lonesome than a wedding, when you come to think of it, doesn't it?"
"It certainly does. Whatever you may have to say against weddings, they are not lonesome."
"Oh, well, I don't have to decide just yet," she said, with an air of relief. "It is a long way off. Only, if I ever do get married, it will be in that little church, no matter if I am off at the North Pole when I am engaged and intend to go back there to set up housekeeping the next day. I made a vow about it, so as to be quite sure that I should have the strength of mind to insist on it. When you have made a vow, you just have to carry it out, you know, in spite of torrents or floods or anything."