n engagement. In short, she threw over all my
arguments. I had to come to the point. I asked her if she would like to
marry _me_, if she knew that I liked somebody else better?

"She opened her eyes at me. 'Do you, Sandie?' she said. And I told her
yes.

"'Who?' she asked as quick as a flash. And I knew then that _her_
heart was safe," Mr. Shubrick added with a smile. "I told her frankly,
that ever since Christmas Day, I had known that if I ever married
anybody it would be the lady I then saw with her.

"'Dolly!' she cried. 'But you don't know her, Sandie.'"

Mr. Shubrick and Dolly both stopped to laugh.

"I am sure that was true. And I should think unanswerable," said Dolly.

"It was not true. Do you think it is true now?"

"Well, you know me a little better, but I should think, not much."

"Shows how little you can tell about it. By the same reasoning, I
suppose you do not know _me_ much?"

"No," said Dolly. "Yes, I do! I know you a great deal, in some things.
If I didn't"---- she flushed up.

"We both know enough to begin with; is that it? Do you remember, that
evening, Christmas Eve, how you sat by the corner of the fireplace and
kept quiet, while Miss Thayer talked?"

"Yes." Dolly remembered it very well.

"You wore a black dress, and no ornaments, and the firelight shone on a
cameo ring on your hand, and on your face, and the curls of your hair,
and every now and then caught this," said Mr. Shubrick, touching
Dolly's chain. "Christina talked, and I studied you."

"One evening," said Dolly.

"One evening; but I was reading what was not written in an evening.
However, I left Christina's objection unanswered--though I do not allow
that it is unanswerable; and waited. She needed a little while to come
to her breath."

"Poor Christina!" said Dolly.

"Not at all; it was poor Sandie, if anybody. I do not think Christina
suffered, more than a little natural and very excusable mortification.
She never loved me. I had guessed as much before, and I was relieved
now to find that I had been certainly right. But she needed a little
while to get her breath, nevertheless. She asked me if I was serious?
then, why I did not tell her sooner? I replied that I had had a great
fight to fight before I could make up my mind to tell her at all.

"And then, as I judge, _she_ had something of a fight to go through.
She turned her face away from me, and sat silent. I did not interrupt
her; and we floated so a good while