two years; probably nearer three--and always she kept putting it off;
wouldn't begin to get ready, wouldn't set a day for the wedding. Then
Mr. Apperthwaite died, and left her and her mother stranded high and dry
with nothing to live on. David had everything in the world to give
her--and STILL she wouldn't! And then, one day, she came up here and
told me she'd broken it off. Said she couldn't stand it to be engaged to
David Beasley another minute!"

"But why?"

"Because"--my cousin's tone was shrill with her despair of expressing
the satire she would have put into it--"because, she said he was a man
of no imagination!"

"She still says so," I remarked, thoughtfully.

"Then it's time she got a little imagination herself!" snapped my
companion. "David Beasley's the quietest man God has made, but everybody
knows what he IS! There are some rare people in this world that aren't
all TALK; there are some still rarer ones that scarcely ever talk at
all--and David Beasley's one of them. I don't know whether it's because
he can't talk, or if he can and hates to; I only know he doesn't. And
I'm glad of it, and thank the Lord he's put a few like that into this
talky world! David Beasley's smile is better than acres of other
people's talk. My Providence! Wouldn't anybody, just to look at him,
know that he does better than talk? He THINKS! The trouble with Ann
Apperthwaite was that she was too young to see it. She was so full of
novels and poetry and dreaminess and highfalutin nonsense she couldn't
see ANYTHING as it really was. She'd study her mirror, and see such a
heroine of romance there that she just couldn't bear to have a fiance