"What is it, dear!" she said. "Say the word and I'll do it!"

"Is that a promise?"

"Ra-ther! Anything to please you, Auntiekins!"

Susan Hetth took her fence in a rush!

"I want you to get married," she said abruptly out of pure fright, and
wrenched at her bead chain when Leonie leapt to her feet.

The girl stood quite still, outlined in her simple low-cut,
short-sleeved dress by the wall, her hands pressed back against it.

There was no sound except the soft gurgle and murmur of the water until
she spoke, quietly, but with a world of horror in her low-pitched voice.

"You want me to marry--_you_--when a moment ago you said that you
thought I was mad--you want me to marry some honest, unsuspecting man,
and bear him children!"

Susan Hetth, shocked to the limit of her Pecksniffian soul, made a
nerveless fluttering gesture of protest with her hands.

"Don't speak," said Leonie quickly, "please don't speak until I have
done. Marriage! I will tell you what I have thought about it while I
have been waiting for my mate."

"Oh!" exploded Susan Hetth vehemently. "_My dear_! Surely you have
not been corresponding with anyone!"