"Mr. Flutter," said she, "I know just how you feel—you want to ask me to marry you, but you are too bashful. Have I guessed right?"
I pressed her hand in speechless assent.
"Yes, my dear boy, I knew it. Well, this is leap-year, and I will not see you sacrificed to your own timidity. I am yours, whenever you wish—to-morrow if you say so—yours forever. You shall have no trouble about it, I will speak to the Rev. Mr. Coalyard myself—I know him. When shall it be?—speak, dearest!"
I gasped out "to-morrow," and buried my blushing face on her shoulder.
For a moment her soft arms were twined around me—a moment only, for we were on the open lake drive. Not more than ten seconds did the pretty widow embrace me, but that was time enough, as I learned to my sorrow, for her to extract my pocket-book, containing the five hundred dollars I still had remaining from the sale of my mining-stock, and not one dollar of which did I ever see again.
CHAPTER XVI.
AT LAST HE SECURES A TREASURE.
I had to pawn my watch to get away from Chicago, for the police failed to find my pretty widow. The thought of getting again under my mother's wing was as welcome as my desire to get away from it had been eager. At night my dreams were haunted by all sorts of horrible fire-works, where old gentlemen sat down on powder-kegs, etc. Oh, for home! I knew there were no widows in my native village, except Widow Green, and I was not afraid of her. Well, I took the cars once more, and I had been riding two days and a night, and was not over forty miles from my destination, when the little incident occurred which proved to lead me into one of the worst blunders of all. It's awful to be a bashful young man! Everybody takes advantage of you. You are the victim of practical jokes—folks laugh if you do nothing on earth but enter a room. If you happen to hit your foot against a stool, or trip over a rug, or call a lady "sir," the girls giggle and the boys nudge each other, as if it were extremely amusing. But to blow up a confiding Wall street speculator, and to be swindled out of all your money by a pretty widow, is enough to make a sensitive man a raving lunatic. I had all this to think of as I was whirled along toward home. So absorbed was I in melancholy reflection, that I did not notice what was going on until a sudden shrill squawk close in my ear caused me to turn, when I found that a very common-looking young woman, with a by no means interesting infant of six months, had taken the vacant half of my seat. I was annoyed. There were plenty of unoccupied seats in the car, and I saw no reason why she should intrude upon my comfort. The infant shrieked wildly when I looked at it; but its mother stopped its mouth with one of those what-do-you-call-'ems that are stuck on the end of a flat bottle containing sweetened milk, and, after sputtering and gurgling in a vain attempt to keep on squalling, it subsided and went vigorously to work. It seemed after a time to become more accustomed to my harmless visage, and stared at me stolidly, with round, unwinking eyes, after it had exhausted the contents of the bottle.