re the
community, and he'd advise me to wait. 'You are both young'--I can hear
him announcing his convictions now, as clearly as if he was standing
here in the road--'You are both young and you can well afford to wait
until something turns up.' As if we hadn't waited and waited from all
eternity!"

"Yes, we have been engaged to be married for at least five weeks," said
Patty, with an upward glance peculiar to her own sparkling face,--one
that always intoxicated Mark. "I am seventeen and a half; your father
couldn't expect a confirmed old maid like me to waste any more time.
But I never would do this--this--sudden, unrespectable thing, if there
was any other way. Everything depends on my keeping it secret from
Waitstill, but she doesn't suspect anything yet. She thinks of me as
nothing but a child still. Do you suppose Ellen would go with us, just
to give me a little comfort?"

"She might," said Mark, after reflecting a moment. "She is very devoted
to you, and perhaps she could keep a secret; she never has, but there's
always a first time. You can't go on adding to the party, though, as
if it was a candy-pull! We cannot take Lucy Morrill and Phoebe Day and
Cephas Cole, because it would be too hard on the horse; and besides,
I might get embarrassed at the town clerk's office and marry the wrong
girl; or you might swop me off for Cephas! But I'll tell Ellen if you
say so; she's got plenty of grit."

"Don't joke about it, Mark, don't. I shouldn't miss Waitstill so much if
I had Ellen, and how happy I shall be if she approves of me for a sister
and thinks your mother and father will like me in time."

"There never was a creature born into the world that wouldn't love you,
Patty!"

"I don't know; look at Aunt Abby Cole!" said Patty pensively. "Well, it
does not seem as if a marriage that isn't good in Riverboro was really
decent! How tiresome of Maine to want all those days of public notice;
people must so often want to get married in a minute. If I think about
anything too long I always get out of the notion."

"I know you do; that's what I'm afraid of!"--and Mark's voice showed
decided nervousness. "You won't get out of the notion of marrying me,
will you, Patty dear?"

"Marrying you is more than a 'notion,' Mark," said Patty soberly.
"I'm only a little past seventeen, but I'm far older because of the
difficulties I've had. I don't wonder you speak of my 'notions.' I was
as light as a feather in all my dealings wit