"I like you very much, Miss Dane—so much that I think it is a thousand pities you should waste your youth, and beauty, and genius on desert air. So—"
"Yes," said Miss Dane—"so you have fallen in love with me at first sight. Is that what you are trying to say?"
"No!" responded Mr. Walraven, emphatically. "I am not in the least in love with you, and never mean to be—in that way."
"Oh, in what way, then, Mr. Walraven?"
"I am a rich man, Miss Dane, and a lonely man very often, and I should like to have a daughter to cheer my old age—a daughter like you, Mistress Cricket, saucy and bright, and so pretty that it will be a pleasure only to look at her."
"And a very complimentary papa you will make. Have you no daughters of your own, Mr. Walraven?"
"None, Miss Mollie. I have the misfortune to have no wife."
"And never mean to have?"
"Can't say about that. I may one day."
"And you are quite sure you will never want me to fill that vacant honor?"