“You know. The nicest girl in all creation after Aunt Dora. She isn’t too young, neither. Amy Bowles is twenty-one years younger than the deacon, and Jessie ain’t any more.”
“Jessie! Jessie Verner!” the squire gasped, and Johnnie continued:
“Yes, Jessie Verner; I most know she’ll have you. Any way, I’ll make her. You break the ice, and I’ll pitch in! Will you, father? Will you have Jessie?”
“It would be better to ask first if she’ll have me,” the father replied, rubbing his head, which seemed a little numb with the sudden shock.
“I hear her. I’ll send her in! You ask her, father!” Johnnie exclaimed, darting to the door, as he heard Jessie in the upper hall whistling “three hundred thousand more.”
As he reached the threshold he paused, while he added:
“I guess Jessie will stand a huggin’ better than Aunt Dora, so you might come that game on her!” and Johnnie rushed after Jessie ere his father had time to recover his breath.
Jessie could not at once be found, and as Johnnie would not tell her what his father wanted of her, she was in no particular hurry to answer the summons, so that Squire Russell had time to collect his thoughts, and to discover that little Jessie Verner was very dear to him, and that though he had never entertained an idea of making her his wife till Johnnie suggested it, the idea was by no means distasteful, and if she were willing, why of course he was. But would she come? Yes, she was coming, for he heard her in the hall calling back to Johnnie:
“Mind, now, if you have played me a trick you will be sorry. I don’t believe he wants me.”
“Yes he does; you ask him,” was Johnnie’s reply, and advancing into the library, Jessie began innocently: