"Why, Mr. Dillwyn, it is self-evident. You would not respect me if I allowed you to do it; and I should not respect myself. We New England folks, if we are nothing else, we are independent."
"So?—" said Mr. Dillwyn, in a puzzled manner, but then a light broke upon him, and he half laughed.—"I never heard that the most rampant spirit of independence made a wife object to being dependent on her husband."
"A wife?" said Lois, not knowing whether she heard aright.
"Yes," said he. "How else? How could it be else? Lois, may I have you, to take care of the rest of my life, as my very own?"
The short, smothered breath with which this was spoken was intelligible enough, and put Lois in the rarest confusion.
"Me?—" was all she could ejaculate.
"You, certainly. I never saw any other woman in my life to whom I wished to put the question. You are the whole world to me, as far as happiness is concerned."
"I?—" said Lois again. "I thought—"
"What?"
She hesitated, and he urged the question. Lois was not enough mistress of herself to choose her words.