y, and I
went down by the embankment and up to try to meet you. Are they after
you?"

"I don't think so. Dare we--"

"Wharf? Yes, I think we may. By the way, I'll show you."

She took him across Waterloo Bridge, where they took a cab and traversed
southward to a point at which she directed the driver to stop.

On the way, Max, from his corner of the hansom, watched the girl
furtively. For a long time there was absolute silence between them. Then
he came close to her suddenly, and peered into her face.

"Carrie," said he, "I want you to marry me."

Now Max had been some time making up his mind to put this
proposition--some minutes, that is to say. He had been turning the
matter over in his brain, and had imagined the blushing, trembling
astonishment with which the lonely girl would receive his most
unexpected proposal.

But the astonishment was on his side, not on hers; for Carrie only
turned her head a little, scarcely looking at him and staring out again
in front of her immediately, remarked in the coolest manner in the
world:

"Marry you! Oh, yes, certainly. Why not?"

Max was taken aback, and Carrie, at last stealing a glance at him,
perceived this. She gave a pretty little kindly laugh, which made him
expect that she would say something more tender, more encouraging.

But she didn't.

Turning her head away again, she went on quietly laughing to herself,
until Max, not unnaturally irritated by this acceptance of his offer,
threw himself back in his corner and tried to laugh also.

"It's a very good joke, isn't it--an offer of marriage?" said he at
last, in an offended tone.

"Very," assented Carrie at once. "About the best I ever heard."

And she went on laughing.

"And I suppose," went on Max, unable to hide his annoyance, "that if I
were to tell you it was not a joke at all, but that I spoke in downright
earnest, you would laugh still more?"

"Well, I think I should."

"Well, laugh away, then. I was in earnest. I meant what I said. I was
idiot enough to suppose you might find marrying me a better alternative
than wandering about without any home. Extraordinary, wasn't it?"

"Well," answered Carrie, subduing her mirth a little and speaking in
that deep-toned voice she unconsciously used when she was moved--the
voice which Max found in itself so moving--"I should say it was
extraordinary, if I didn't know you."

"If you didn't know me for an idiot, I suppose you mean," said Max,
coldly, with