conditions that are stopping you, you can make your own conditions if you
will marry me."

"Marry you, Harold! What do you mean? Do you know what you are saying?" I
exclaimed.

"There!" he replied: I knew you would take it as an insult. I believe you
are the proudest girl in the world. I know you are too clever for me; but
I love you, and could give you everything you fancied."

"Hal, dear, let me explain. I'm not insulted, only surprised. I thought
you were going to tell me that you loved Gertie, and would ask me not to
make things unpleasant by telling her of the foolish little bit of
flirtation there had been between us."

"Marry Gertie! Why, she's only a child! A mere baby, in fact. Marry
Gertie! I never thought of her in that light; and did you think I was
that sort of a fellow, Syb?" he asked reproachfully.

"No, Hal," I promptly made answer. I did not think you were that sort of
fellow; but I thought that was the only sort of fellow there was."

"Good heavens, Syb! Did you really mean those queer little letters you
wrote me last February? I never for an instant looked upon them as
anything but a little bit of playful contrariness. And have you forgotten
me? Did you not mean your promise of two years ago, that you speak of
what passed between us as a paltry bit of flirtation? Is that all you
thought it?"

"No, I did not consider it flirtation; but that is what I thought you
would term it when announcing your affection for Gertie."

"Gertie! Pretty little Gertie! I never looked upon the child as anything
but your sister, consequently mine also. She's a child."

"Child! She is eighteen. More than a year older than I was when you first
introduced the subject of matrimony to me, and she is very beautiful, and
twenty times as good and lovable as I could ever be even in my best
moments."

"Yes, I know you are young in years, but there is nothing of the child in
you. As for beauty, it is nothing. If beauty was all a man required, he
could, if rich, have a harem full of it any day. I want some one to be
true."

"The world is filled with folly and sin,
And love must cling where it can, I say;
For beauty is easy enough to win,
But one isn't loved every day,"

I quoted from Owen Meredith.

"Yes," he said, "that is why I want you. Just think a moment; don't say
no. You are not vexed with me--are you, Syb?"

"Vexed, Hal! I am scarcely inhuman enough to be angry on account of being
loved."

Ah, why di