"Really?"
"When I say that I have been talking with Aunt Mary, and about you," I continued in a grieved tone, for I do not like jerky responses, "I wish you to understand that it was in connection with no ordinary topic. Phyllis,"—I spoke with the utmost tenderness—"can you not guess the nature of our discussion?"
Phyllis was equal to the emergency; her embarrassment had disappeared. "I am glad," she said, "that your conversation so far as it related to me was out of the ordinary. I suppose I may ask what the topic was—that is, if you don't mind telling."
This was approaching the serious. "Phyllis, I was telling Aunt Mary that I loved you and wished to make you my wife."
A flash, half merry, half angry, came to her eye. "That was thoughtful of you. Is it customary for gentlemen in the city, when they think they love a girl, to honor all her relations with their confidence before they speak to the girl herself?"
I took her hand. She made the slightest motion to withdraw it, and permitted it to remain in my grasp. "Phyllis," I said with all earnestness, "do not misunderstand me. I sought you at the house. You were absent. Your Aunt Mary and I have been friends from childhood, and it was only natural that out of my heart I spoke the words that were in my mind. I told her that I loved you, just as at that moment I might have shouted it from the housetop. My heart was full of you and I had to speak. Can't you understand?"
The girl was still obdurate, and she spoke with some petulance. "If that is the case, perhaps it is just as well that it was Aunt Mary and not one of the neighbors."
"Dear little Phyllis, you are not angry with me because I love you? You cannot remain angry with me because I confessed my love before I met you to-day? If you had only seen with what applications of cold water your aunt rewarded my confidence, you would pity and not reproach me."
For a minute the girl was silent. Then she asked softly: "How long have you known that you loved me?"
"Must I answer that question candidly and unreservedly?"