ecause he was too shy to go boldly up and ask if he might see her
home.

All taken together, what wonder if David lost his head over that
tea-table and determined to ask Josephine the same old question once
more? It was eighteen years since he had asked it for the first time,
and two years since the last. He would try his luck again; Josephine
was certainly more gracious than he remembered her to ever have been
before.

When the meal was over Josephine cleared the table and washed the
dishes. When she had taken a dry towel and sat down by the window to
polish her china David understood that his opportunity had come. He
moved over and sat down beside her on the sofa by the window.

Outside the sun was setting in a magnificent arch of light and colour
over the snow-clad hills and deep blue St. Lawrence gulf. David
grasped at the sunset as an introductory factor.

"Isn't that fine, Josephine?" he said admiringly. "It makes me think
of that piece of poetry that used to be in the old Fifth Reader when
we went to school. D'ye mind how the teacher used to drill us up in it
on Friday afternoons? It begun

'Slow sinks more lovely ere his race is run
Along Morea's hills the setting sun.'"

Then David declaimed the whole passage in a sing-song tone,
accompanied by a few crude gestures recalled from long-ago school-boy
elocution. Josephine knew what was coming. Every time David proposed
to her he had begun by reciting poetry. She twirled her towel around
the last plate resignedly. If it had to come, the sooner it was over
the better. Josephine knew by experience that there was no heading
David off, despite his shyness, when he had once got along as far as
the poetry.

"But it's going to be for the last time," she said determinedly. "I'm
going to settle this question so decidedly to-night that there'll
never be a repetition."

When David had finished his quotation he laid his hand on Josephine's
plump arm.

"Josephine," he said huskily, "I s'pose you couldn't--could you
now?--make up your mind to have me. I wish you would, Josephine--I
wish you would. Don't you think you could, Josephine?"

Josephine folded up her towel, crossed her hands on it, and looked her
wooer squarely in the eyes.

"David Hartley," she said deliberately, "what makes you go on asking
me to marry you every once in a while when I've told you times out of
mind that I can't and won't?"

"Because I can't help hoping that you'll change your