"I must decide," she mused. "I must give him an answer. I never can say yes. Suppose he should want to touch me, or to kiss me. Ugh! I should die! How red my face is! It must be because I hurried so. The color is becoming, though. I ought to go down, but it will do him good to wait a while; and I must think. "Oh, I wish a woman was independent as a man is! Then I needn't be engaged to anybody. But I never can care for anybody as I did for Tom. How could Tom be so--how could he act so! I must be engaged to Clarence to show Tom that I'm not heart-broken for him. Oh, how I hate Tom Putnam!--at least I hate the way he acts. Hate makes more matches than love, I dare say. What nonsense! Let me think: I must think. I'm sure Clarence is nice. He has so refined personal habits! And then his wife could have any thing money could buy. Wife? There's time enough to think of that: this is only the engagement, and I dare say one gets fond of any man by being engaged to him long enough. Perhaps I should get to be willing to be Mrs. Toxteth. I'm sure I hope so. This comb is certainly in a little bit too high. There! I am pretty, but a girl is despised forever that will own she thinks herself so. Dear me! I must go down stairs and see that horrid Clarence. I'm sure I don't see why he need be forever bothering me for an answer. How unhappy I am! and I'm afraid I deserve it. I wonder if he wouldn't give me a week longer. No, I don't think I quite dare to ask for that: I've treated him shamefully now. But I'll make amends: I'll say yes, but I do hate to awfully." And down stairs swept the young lady to meet the suitor to whom she had decided to plight her troth. He rose to meet her, uttering some polite commonplace, and she began to rattle on about the gossip of Montfield. She dreaded the question he had come to ask; yet soon she began to experience an irritated desire that he would speak, and end this suspense. She carried that fatal yes as a burden of which she would fain be rid as quickly as possible. At last the question came. "Have you thought that the week you asked is up?" Clarence inquired. "I remembered it," she answered, dropping her eyelids. "You haven't given me my answer." "Did you expect me to come to you with it?" she asked, fencing to gain time. "Of course not; but I have come for it." "I am not worth so much trouble," she said. "Is that my answer?" "Certainly it isn't," she replied. "But why must you be in such haste about it?" "Haste about it!" he repeated. "I should think I had waited long enough. If I am not worth answering, I cannot be worth marrying." His indignation influenced Patty in his favor; but alas! his last word made her shudder. "Oh! It isn't that," she ambiguously exclaimed. "But do you mean to say yes, or no?" Clarence demanded with some irritation. Patty looked at him with dilated eyes. "It must come," she thought, "and then I shall be engaged to him, and he'll have the right to kiss me; but I must say it."