“Indeed! That should be extremely pleasant.”
“I hate the idea of going,” the boy blurted out. He looked straight ahead; a slow flush darkened his fair skin.
“Yes?”
“Unless,” he murmured, suddenly inspired to madness, “unless——”
Miss Herron readjusted the dust cloth. The boy felt a quick irritation at her apparent inattention; but the purpose, born of her apparent readiness to hear and approve him, held. “I want Lucy to go, too, Miss Herron,” he announced, bluntly enough.
“Indeed!”
“Lucy!” he cried. “I do love her so! Please say that I can have her. Please say——”
“Do I understand,” she asked, and the boy could not comprehend why her old voice shook so, “that you are making a formal proposal for the hand of Miss Lucy Herron?”
“Yes,” he cried, jubilantly. “Oh, say I may ask her.”
“If you had intended so far to honor us,” the old lady replied, icily, “I should have thought that you would have approached the subject with some degree of formality.”