"How can I ever thank you."
"Don't thank me: you could have the dairy! You could have the
cows, the farm."
"O dear, no!" cried Miss Anna, "that would be altogether too much!
One bottle goes far beyond all that I ever hoped for."
"I wish ail women were like you."
"O dear, no! that would not do at all! I am an old maid, and women
must marry, must, must! What would become of the world?"
"You need not be an old maid unless you wish."
"Now, I had never thought of that!" observed Miss Anna, in a very
peculiar tone. "But we'll not talk about myself; let us talk about
yourself. You are looking extremely well--now aren't you?"
"No one has a better right. It is due you to let you know this.
There's good timber in me yet."
"Due _me_! I am not interested in timber."
"Anna," he said, throwing his arms around one of his knees, "our
hour has come--we need not wait any longer."
"Wait for _what_?" inquired Miss Anna, bending toward him with the
scrutiny of a near-sighted person trying to make out some looming
horror.
"Our marriage."
Miss Anna rose as by an inward explosion.
"Go, _buzzard_!"
He kept his seat and stared at her with a dropped jaw. Habit was
powerful in him; and there was something in her anger, in that
complete sweeping of him out other way, that recalled the domestic
usages of former years and brought to his lips an involuntary
time-worn expression:
"I meant nothing offensive."
"I do not know what you meant, and I do not care: go!"
He rose and stood before her, and with a flash of sincere anger he
spoke his honest mind: "It was you who put the notion in my head.
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