“Miss Pet, I knew you would laugh; I knew it all along, and I told him so this morning,” said Mr. Toosypegs, with a sniffle; “you mean well, I dare say, but it don’t seem kind at all.”
“Laugh!” exclaimed Pet; “come, I like that, and my face as long as an undertaker’s! You may take a microscope and look from this until the week after next, and then you won’t discover the ghost of a smile on my countenance. Laugh, indeed! I’m above such a weakness, I hope,” said Pet, with ineffable contempt.
“Then, Miss Pet, perhaps you will have me,” said Mr. Toosypegs, with sudden hope. “Miss Pet, I can’t begin to tell you the way I love you; you can’t have any idea of it; it goes right through and through me. I think of you all day, and I dream about you all night. I’m in the most dreadful way about you, ever was. Miss Pet, I’d do anything you told me to. I’d go and drown myself if you wanted me to, or shoot myself, or take ratsbane, and rather like it than otherwise, if you’ll only have me, Miss Pet—”
“Orlando, I’m very sorry; but—I can’t.”
“Miss Pet, you don’t mean it; you can’t mean it, surely. I know I ain’t so good-looking as some,” said Mr. Toosypegs, in a melancholy tone; “but I can get something to take the freckles off, and I expect to fatten out a little by-and-by, so—”
“Now, don’t go to any such trouble for me,” said Pet, with difficulty keeping from laughing at his mildly-anguished look. “I don’t mind the freckles at all; I rather like them, in fact; they vary the monotony of the complexion, just as oases do in the deserts we read of; and as for being thin—well, I’m rather on the hatchet-pattern myself, you know. But you must quit thinking about me, Orlando, because I’m only a wild little Tomboy, that everybody gets furious about, and I never intend to get married at all—that is, unless—well, never mind.”
“Miss Pet, if you only knew how badly in love I am.”
“Oh, you only think so; you’ll forget me in a week!”
“I’ll never forget you, Miss Pet, never—not even if I was to be taken out of this world altogether, and sent up to New Jersey. It’s awful to think you won’t have me—it really is,” said Mr. Toosypegs, in great mental distress.
“Well, I’m sorry, Orlando, but I can’t help it, you know. Now be a good boy for my sake, and try to forget me—won’t you?” asked Pet, coaxingly.