Flea spoke hurriedly, but her voice did not shake. She was too much wrought up to be diffident. "Miss Emily! they tell me you are going to marry Mr. Tayloe. You don't know how I love you. I can't remember the time when I didn't love and almost worship you. You've always been so kind and sweet that I couldn't have helped loving you even if you hadn't been so beautiful."
Miss Emily leaned back on the bench, well pleased and smiling.
"Oh, come now, you've learned how to flatter in Philadelphia," she simpered, hitting Flea with the handkerchief that had wiped the tears from the blue eyes a little while ago. "And who, I should like to know, has been fibbing to you about my getting married?"
Flea seized upon both the pretty hands, her face one flash of ecstasy.
"I might have known it couldn't be true. Oh-h-h!" heaving a long, quivering sigh of relief. "If you only knew what I suffered when I heard you were to marry him! I couldn't bear the thought."
"You jealous little puss!"
Flea had sunk to her knees upon the gravelly floor of the arbor, and was gazing worshipfully into her idol's face. It was like the coming true of another fairy dream when the dainty white hands were laid one on each side of her flashed cheeks, and Miss Emily kissed her between the eyes.
"You unreasonable little monkey! Do you want me to die an old maid? I declare"—inspecting the braided front of the habit-waist—"you look real fashionable. And you used to be such a tomboy that your poor mother threatened to make oznaburg frocks for you. But go on. Then you won't let me marry anybody?"
"I didn't mean that," Flea protested. "But I heard that you were engaged to Mr. Tayloe, and it made me perfectly miserable, and I felt that if I could talk to you for five minutes you would change your mind. I'm so happy that it is nothing but a gossip's story."
"What have you against poor Mr. Tayloe besides his admiration for a foolish little nobody like me?"