"Yes, and you and I will enhance her pleasure a thousand-fold."

"I shall do all that I can in courtesy."

"I'll do the rest, for I shall gladden her heart by marrying you."

"What!"

"Simply that, nothing more. Isn't that enough?"

"Far too much," replied the girl, hotly. "I don't like such
jesting."

"Faith and it will prove the best joke of our lives, over which we
will often laugh at our fireside hereafter. Come now, cousin, make
the best of it; it is the best for you as well as for me. You know I
always intended to marry you, and I have the hearty sanction of all
the high contracting powers."

She stopped abruptly in the path, her face so rich in angry color
that it shamed the flowers blooming in the shrubbery near.

"Mr. Whately," she said, firmly, "there is one contracting power
that you have not consulted. How can you marry me when I WILL not
marry you?"

"Nothing easier, pretty coz."

"But how--how?"