"But she rejected you last winter, Teddy."
"I know; but everything is different now. She was a belle and heiress then; now she is poor, and friendless but for us. When she learns that I love her in spite of her changed position, and that I want to marry her as soon as she will have me, she will be touched by the romance of the affair, and—now don't laugh so, Cousin Carrie—it is romantic, is it not, my devotion?"
"Certainly," she agreed, merrily; then added: "But I'm afraid you will find it hard to convince her of your devotion; for she told me when I spoke of it just now that you had proposed to Helen Fox the very week after she rejected you."
Teddy made a grimace.
"Oh, that was all fun, and I think it was very shabby in Helen telling all the other girls about it. Of course, I only wanted the engagement for a few weeks, then to pique her and get discarded, as I've done with other, girls," he said, carelessly, having a very elastic conscience in matters of love.
But he added, rather lugubriously:
"But I'm in earnest, Carrie, with Kathleen Carew. Positively, she is the only girl I ever loved in my life—that is, real, sure enough love—and it will break my heart if I don't get her for my wife."
"You didn't break your heart when you believed that she was dead," his cousin reminded him, cynically.
"Oh, that's different!" he replied, vaguely. "I've set my heart on getting her now, and I could never get over it, if I failed. Look here, Cousin Carrie," leaning toward her, his bright, dark eyes full of tender pleading, "help me, won't you? Speak a good word for me to her. I'm not such a bad sort, am I?" wheedlingly. "I would make a nice young girl a good husband, wouldn't I, now?"