said, with one of her beaming smiles, 'And have I got to love you?'

'I think you had better, because it will make it easier.'

'Well, I will then, if you'll do one thing.'

'What is it?'

'Give me that old button of yours.'

Teddy fairly gasped at this audacity.

'Give you father's button!' he cried; 'never, never, never! I'd rather be
shot dead, or drownded dead, or hung dead, or chopped into little tiny
bits! I'll _never_ give it up! It's going to be on my coats and
waistcoats till I'm a hundred, and then it will be buried in my grave
with me. Suppose I lost my button, do you know what I would do?'

Nancy gazed at the young orator with a little awe.

'No,' she said; 'what?'

'I would drop down and die, my heart would burst and break, and if I
couldn't die very quick, I wouldn't eat or drink nothing, but I'd go
sadly to my grave and lay my head down, and the next morning you would
find me stiff and cold with my glassy eyes staring up at the sky, like an
old dog I read about.'

Teddy's tone was so intensely tragic that Nancy was silent. At last she
said, 'I'll never love you proper till you give it to me.'