Harold and I came to a
halt by tacit consent.

"Syb, I want to speak to you," he said earnestly, and then came to a dead
stop.

"Very well; 'tear into it,' as Horace would say; but if it is anything
frightful, break it gently," I said flippantly.

"Surely, Syb, you can guess what it is I have to say."

Yes, I could guess, I knew what he was going to say, and the knowledge
left a dull bitterness at my heart. I knew he was going to tell me that I
had been right and he wrong--that he had found some one he loved better
than me, and that some one being my sister, he felt I needed some
explanation before he could go in and win; and though I had refused him
for want of love, yet it gave me pain when the moment arrived that the
only man who had ever pretended to love me was going to say he had been
mistaken, and preferred my sister.

There was silence save for the whirr of the countless grasshoppers in the
brier bushes. I knew he was expecting me to help him out, but I felt
doggedly savage and wouldn't. I looked up at him. He was a tall grand
man, and honest and true and rich. He loved my sister; she would marry
him, and they would he happy. I thought bitterly that God was good to one
and cruel to another--not that I wanted this man, but why was I so
different from other girls?

But then I thought of Gertie, so pretty, so girlish, so understandable,
so full of innocent winning coquetry. I softened. Could any one help
preferring her to me, who was strange, weird, and perverse--too outspoken
to be engaging, devoid of beauty and endearing little ways? It was my own
misfortune and nobody's fault that my singular individuality excluded me
from the ordinary run of youthful joyous-heartednesses, and why should I
be nasty to these young people?

I was no heroine, only a common little bush-girl, so had to make the best
of the situation without any fooling. I raised my eyes from the scanty
baked wisps of grass at my feet, placed my hand on Hal's arm, and
tiptoeing so as to bring my five-foot stature more on a level with his,
said:

"Yes, Hal, I know what you want to say. Say it all. I won't be nasty."

"Well, you see you are so jolly touchy, and have snubbed me so often,
that I don't know how to begin; and if you know what I'm going to say,
won't you give me an answer without hearing it?"

"Yes, Hal; but you'd better say it, as I don't know what conditions--"

"Conditions!"--catching me up eagerly at the word. "If it is only