You see, it was this way: We went to a hop last night, the very first hop of my life, and we naturally dressed up for it in our best white muslins, low necks, short sleeves, silk stockings, tucked-up hair and all, and we looked quite grown-up. All of us are sixteen, except Mary Flannagan, who is just fifteen. We went with a goodly number of escorts: Harvie Price and Shorty Hawkins, who are staying in the house with us; Mr. Tucker and Mr. Gordon, who is Miss Cox's lover; and four boys from a camp near us who have been very nice to us since we have been at Willoughby.
One of these boys, Stephen White (Wink for short), is studying medicine at the University. He is very good looking and has lots of sense. He and I have had a great many very pleasant times together, but it never entered my head that he thought of me as anything but a kid. In fact, I thought he was in love with a girl in Charlottesville; Mabel Binks, his cousin, told me he was. I also thought that Dee was his favourite among all of us girls. I know Dee likes him a lot. You see, Dee is so interested in sick kittens and babies and physiology that she just naturally takes to medical students. But last night Wink gave me what might be termed a rush. He broke in dances and claimed dances and did all kinds of things that were rather astonishing. He is not a very good dancer and as Mr. Tucker (I call him Zebedee now) is a splendid one I did not relish Wink's constantly taking me away from him nor did Zebedee seem overjoyed to lose me. I thought all the time Wink was doing it to tease Mabel Binks, who just naturally despises me and of course would not like to see her good looking cousin paying me too much attention. He asked me to sit out a dance with him and as he is a much better talker than dancer I was glad to do it, although I must confess I could not keep my feet still all the time he was talking to me. He took me to a nice corner of the porch looking out over the water and began. I hope you don't think it is wrong of me to tell you this, Cousin Sue. You see I would bite out my tongue before I would tell any of the other girls, but I feel as though I would simply have to tell some one or—well, bust! He started this way:
"What do you think of long engagements?" and I said:
"I don't think at all; but I heard one of Father's old maid cousins say once when someone was discussing long engagements, 'Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.'"
And then Wink went on telling me of his prospects and his ambitions. He seems to have little prospects and big ambitions, which after all is the best thing for a young man, I believe. He asked me if I thought it was too much to ask a girl to wait, say, five years. I thought of course he was talking about the Charlottesville girl, who turns out to be a myth, and I said that I did not suppose true love would set any limit on waiting. He said he was almost twenty and had one more year at the University and expected to have a year in a New York hospital, and then his ambition was to become a first class up-to-date country doctor.
He loves the country and says he has never yet seen a good country doctor who was not overworked. I agreed with him there and said that my father was certainly overworked. I also told him that I had in a measure suggested him to my father as a possible assistant. That pleased him so much that he impulsively seized my hand. I thought of course he was still thinking of the Charlottesville girl and wondered if she would be a pleasant addition to our neighbourhood, when Wink began to pour forth such an impassioned appeal that I could no longer think he was talking about the Charlottesville girl but was actually addressing me. I felt mighty bad and very foolish. When I told him he had known me but a little over two weeks he said that made no difference, that there was such a thing as "love at first sight."
"But," I said, "you did not love me at first sight."
"Yes I did, but I did not realize it until tonight when I saw you for the first time with your hair tucked up, and dressed in an evening dress."
"Well, when I let it down tomorrow and get back into a middy you will find out what a mistake you have made."
"Oh, Page, please don't tease me! It makes no difference now what you wear or how you do your hair, I am going to love you forever and forever. Don't you love me just a little?" And a spirit of mischief still prompting me, I answered: