“I wish I were as sure of something else as that it will not rain. Stay a little, don’t be in such a hurry,” said Ray. “Ah, if you only knew how I want to speak to you; but either some one comes, or— I funk it. I am more afraid of you than of the queen.”
“Afraid of—me?” Lucy laughed a little; but looked at him, and grew nervous in spite of herself. “Don’t you think we had better wait for the others?” she said.
“I have funked it fifty times; but it does not get any easier by being put off; for if you were to say you would have nothing to do with me I don’t know what would happen,” said Ray. He spoke with real alarm and horror, for indeed he did know something that would inevitably happen. The cutting short of all his pleasures, the downfall of a hundred hopes. “We have seen a great deal of each other since you came home, and we have got on very well.”
“Oh, yes,” said Lucy, “very well! I think I hear them coming this way.”
“No, they are not likely to come this way. I have always got on well with you, I don’t know how it is; often I can’t get on with ladies; but you are always so jolly, you are so good-tempered; I don’t know any one half so nice,” said the youth, growing red. “I am not a hand at compliments, and I never was what you call a ladies’ man,” he continued, floundering and feeling that he had made a mistake in thus involving himself in so many words. “Look here, I think you are the very nicest girl I ever met in my life.”
“Oh, no,” Lucy said, growing graver and more grave, “I am sure you are making a mistake.”
“Not the least a mistake— I like everything about you,” said Raymond, astonished at his own fervor and sincerity. “You are always so jolly; and we have known each other all our lives, when we were quite babies, don’t you remember? I always called you Lucy then. Lucy—our people seem to think that you and I—don’t you think? I do believe we should get on just as well together all our lives, if you were willing to try.”
“Oh, Mr. Raymond,” cried Lucy, distressed, “why, why should you talk to me like this? We are good friends, and let us stay good friends. I am sure you don’t in your heart want anything more.”
“But I do,” cried Raymond, piqued. “You think I am too young, but I am not so very young; many a fellow is married before he is my age. Why shouldn’t I want a wife as well as the others? I do; but Lucy, there is no wife I care for but you.”
“Mr. Raymond, we must make haste, or we shall be caught in the rain.”