"You never saw me engaged before! That's the way all girls act--if they get
the chance. Don't you like me to be so?" she asked, with quick anxiety.

"Rather!" he replied.

"Oh, Bartley!" she exclaimed, "I feel like a child. I surprise myself as
much as I do you; for I thought I had got very old, and I didn't suppose I
should ever let myself go in this way. But there is something about this
that lets me be as silly as I like. It's somehow as if I were a great deal
more alone when I'm with you than when I'm by myself! How does it make you
feel?"

"Good!" he answered, and that satisfied her better than if he had entered
into those subtleties which she had tried to express: it was more like a
man. He had his arm about her again, and she put down her hand on his to
press it closer against her heart.

"Of course," she explained, recurring to his surprise at her frolic mood,
"I don't expect you to be silly because I am."

"No," he assented; "but how can I help it?"

"Oh, I don't mean for the time being; I mean generally speaking. I mean
that I care for you because I know you know a great deal more than I
do, and because I respect you. I know that everybody expects you to be
something great, and I do, too."

Bartley did not deny the justness of her opinions concerning himself, or
the reasonableness of the general expectation, though he probably could