ascal? No; I had to
let her go home thinking that, if we were not already engaged, we should
be some time, and I went part way with her, and--it was a mean trick to
play, but the nonsensical things that unthinking people do precipitate
affairs which perhaps without their means might never fully develop. Brian
Beck heard that I was going a few miles with her, and he and Sallie and
Payson came down to the train to see us off. Just as we pulled out of the
station, Brian made the most frantic signs for me to open the window, and
when I did so, he threw a tissue-paper package at me. Frankie and I both
made an effort to catch it. Of course it burst when we touched it, and a
good pound of rice was scattered all over us. You never saw such a sight.
It flew in every direction; her hat and my hair were full of it. Some went
down my collar. Of course everybody in the car roared and--well, I'm not
done blushing at it yet. Frankie took it much better than I, and only
laughed at it. But I--I felt more like crying. I saw instantly how it
complicated things. It was a nail driven into my coffin.

"We had no more than settled down from that and were just having a good
little talk, after the passengers had stopped looking at us, when the
porter appeared, bringing a basket of white flowers with two turtle-doves
suspended from the handle, and Brian Beck's card on it. I wish you could
have heard the people laugh. I declare to you, Ruth, when I saw that great
white thing coming and knew what it meant, it looked as big as a
billiard-table to me. I was going to pay the fellow to take it out again,
but no--Frankie wanted it. She made me put it down on the opposite seat
and there it stood. Those sickening birds were too much for me, so I
jerked them off and threw them out of the window, conscious that my face
was very red and that I was amusing more people than I had bargained for.

"When the time came for me to get off and take the train back, Frankie
implored me to go on with her, urging how strange it would look to
people, who all thought we were married, to see me disappear and have her
go on alone. I railed at the idea, but she was in earnest, and when I told
her positively that I couldn't--thinking more, I must admit, of the state
of my affairs than of hers--she began to cry under her veil. That settled
it. Of course I couldn't stand it to see the girl I loved cry, so I went
home with her, fell deeper in love every minute I was there, and ca