just to please you; won't you get married and settle down with me? I
love you so I can't eat nor drink nor 'tend store nor nothin'!"

"Oh, I--I--couldn't, Cephas, thank you; I just couldn't,--don't ask me,"
cried Patty, as nervous as Cephas himself now that her first offer had
really come; "I'm only seventeen and I don't feel like settling down,
Cephas, and father wouldn't think of letting me get married."

"Don't play tricks on me, Patty, and keep shovin' me off so, an' givin'
wrong reasons," pleaded Cephas. "What's the trouble with me? I know
mother's temper's onsartain, but we never need go into the main house
daytimes and father'd allers stand up ag'in' her if she didn't treat
you right. I've got a good trade and father has a hundred dollars o' my
savin's that I can draw out to-morrer if you'll have me."

"I can't, Cephas; don't move; stay where you are; no, don't come any
nearer; I'm not fond of you that way, and, besides,--and, besides--"

Her blush and her evident embarrassment gave Cephas a new fear.

"You ain't promised a'ready, be you?" he asked anxiously; "when there
ain't a feller anywheres around that's ever stepped foot over your
father's doorsill but jest me?"

"I haven't promised anything or anybody,"

Patty answered sedately, gaining her self-control by degrees, "but I
won't deny that I'm considering; that's true!"

"Considerin' who?" asked Cephas, turning pale.

"Oh,--SEVERAL, if you must know the truth"; and Patty's tone was cruel
in its jauntiness.

"SEVERAL!" The word did not sound like ordinary work-a-day Riverboro
English in Cephas's ears. He knew that "several" meant more than one,
but he was too stunned to define the term properly in its present
strange connection.

"Whoever 't is wouldn't do any better by you'n I would. I'd take a
lickin' for you any day," Cephas exclaimed abjectly, after a long pause.

"That wouldn't make any difference, Cephas," said Patty firmly, moving
towards the front door as if to end the interview. "If I don't love you
UNlicked, I couldn't love you any better licked, now, could I?--Goodness
gracious, what am I stepping in? Cephas, quick! Something has been
running all over the floor. My feet are sticking to it."

"Good Gosh! It's Mis' Morrill's molasses!" cried Cephas, brought to his
senses suddenly.

It was too true! Whatever had been the small obstruction in the tap,
it had disappeared. The gallon measure had been filled to the brim ten
minutes befor