"I ought not to have told what Patty Sanford said," he remarked. "She didn't mean it. Indeed, I am not sure but I said it, and she only assented. Of course it should never have been repeated. I beg you'll forget it." "I never forget any thing," laughed Emily; "but I never should mention what was told me in confidence." In the first carriage of the three, the lawyer and his companion rode for some time in silence. Each was endeavoring to imagine the thoughts of the other, and each at the same time carrying on an earnest train of reflections. With people in love, silence is often no less eloquent than speech, and perhaps is more often truly interpreted. Mr. Putnam was the first to speak. "You are twenty-one," he said, with no apparent connection. "I am twenty-one," she answered, not failing to remark that the words showed that his thoughts had been of her. "A girl at twenty-one," he continued, "is old enough to know her own mind." "This girl at twenty-one certainly knows her own mind." "Humph! I suppose so--or thinks she does." Another long silence followed, more intense than before. Both were conscious of a secret excitement,--an electric condition of the mental atmosphere. At last Putnam, as if the question of ages was of the most vital interest, spoke again. "I am thirty-two," he said. "You are thirty-two," she echoed. "Do you think that so old?" "That depends"-- "Well, too old for marrying, say?" "That depends too," she answered, her color heightening, in spite of her determination not to look conscious. "To marry," he continued, "say,--for the sake of example merely,--say a girl of twenty-one. You ought to know what a lady of twenty-one would think." "I know a great deal that I should never think of telling." "But I am in earnest. You see this is an important question." "You had better ask the lady herself." "_The_ lady? I said _a_ lady. Besides, as I said this morning (pardon my repeating it), 'the little god of love won't turn the spit--spit--spit.'" "Of course you are not too old," Patty said with a sudden flash of the eyes, "to marry a girl of twenty--if she would accept you." "I said twenty-one," he returned; "but the difference isn't material. You've evaded the question. What I want to get at is, wouldn't she think I was too old to accept?" "Not if she loved you." "But if she didn't?" "Why, then she wouldn't marry you, if you were young as Hazard, as big as Burleigh, and as gorgeously arrayed as Clarence Toxteth. You had best not let any woman know, however, that you think her love meaner than your own." "I do not understand." "A woman, if she loved a man at all, would find it hard to forgive him for believing her unwilling to share his bitter things as well as his sweet." "Um! But suppose he thought it selfish to ask her to share the bitter things?"