! Even her dress and
her deportment seemed to have changed with her new manner of speaking.

It is always so. The forward progress in any one direction means
forward progress in almost every other.

Rita was a sweet, though still impetuous, little maiden that any
cultured man might have been proud to have for a wife.

One rainy night, she and I were sitting by the stove in my front room.
I was in an easy chair, with a book in my hand, while Rita was sitting
in front of me on a small, carpet-covered stool, leaning sideways
against my legs and supposedly doing some paraphrasing. A movement on
her part caused me to glance at her.

She had turned and was staring toward the window and her eyes were
growing larger and larger every moment. Her face grew pale, while her
lips parted and an expression, akin to fear, began to creep into her
eyes.

I turned my head hurriedly to the window, but all was dark over there
and the rain was pattering and splashing against the glass.

Still, Rita sat staring, although the look of fear had gone.

I laid my hand on her shoulder.

"Rita, Rita!--what in the world is wrong?"

"Oh, George,--I,--I saw Joe's face at the window. I never saw him look
so angry before," she whispered nervously.

I laughed.

"Why!--you foolish little woman, I looked over there almost as soon as
you did, but I saw no one."

"But he was there, I tell you," she repeated.

I rose to go to the door.

"No, no!" she cried. "Don't go."

But I went, nevertheless, throwing the door wide open and getting a
gust of wind and rain in my face as I peered out into the night.

I closed the door again and came back to Rita.

"Why! silly little girl, you must have dreamed it. There is no one
there."

I tapped her on the cheek.

"I did not know Rita Clark was nervous," I bandied.

She looked dreamily into the fire for a while, then she turned round to
me and laid her cheek against my knee.

"George!--Joe's been coming home more and more of late. He's been lots
nicer to me than he used to be. He brought me a gold brooch with
pearls in it, from Vancouver, to-day."

"Good for him!" I remarked.

"It was a lovely brooch," she went on. "I put it in my dress, it
looked so pretty. Then Joe asked me to go with him along the beach.
Said he wanted to talk to me. I went with him, and he asked me if I
would marry him.

"Marry him, mind you!--and I have known him all my life.

"He said he didn't know he lov