both so radiant and so worn that
she had to harden her heart against him to be able to hold herself in
hand for what she wanted to say to him.

"No," she answered determinedly, "and you must listen to every word I
say, for I am getting frightened already and may have to stop."

"I want to talk some myself," he said with the very first smile coming
into his grave young eyes. "I want to tell you that I can't help loving
you, and have ever since I first saw you, but that it won't do at all
for you to marry--marry a Providence country bumpkin with nothing but a
doctoring head on his shoulders. I want you to understand that--"

"Please don't refuse me this way before I've ever asked you," she said
with a trace of the grand dame hauteur in her manner and voice that he
had never seen before. "I think--I think very suddenly I have come to
realize, Doctor Mayberry, that--that--oh, I'm very frightened, but I
must say it! I wouldn't blame you or your Mother for not wanting me at
all. I--I somehow, I don't seem very great--or real to myself here in
Providence. My training has been all to one end--useless now--and I'm
all unlessoned and unlearned in the real things of life. I seem to feel
that the hot theaters and the crowds that have looked at me and--am I
what she has a right to demand in your wife?" And, with a proud little
gesture, she laid her case in his hands.

And though she had not expected anything dramatic from him in the way
of refutation of her speech, she was totally unprepared for the
wonderful, absolute silence that met her heroics. He stood and looked
her full in the eyes with a calm radiance in his face that reminded her
of the dawn-light she had seen that morning come over Providence Nob
and his deep smile gave a young prophet look to his austere mouth. And
as she gazed at him she drew timidly nearer, even around the corner of
the table.

"Your work is so wonderful--and real--and you ought to have a wife
who--" By this time she had got much nearer and her voice trailed off
into uncertainty. And still he stood perfectly still and looked at her.

"She loves me and I love her, so that, do you think, I might--I might
learn? Cindy says I'm a wonder--and remember the custards," she
finished from somewhere in the region of his collar. "Now that we've
both refused each other do you suppose we can go on and be happy?" she
laughed softly from under his chin.

And the young Doctor held her very close and never answere