"Then I hope to live in New York, and learn good manners and correct customs, and make myself fit to be a friend of yours." "Oh, Little Billee, you _are_ a friend of mine." "Well, something more than a friend, then. Patty,--I _must_ ask you,--are you engaged to Van Reypen?" "Goodness, no!" and Patty flashed a glance of surprise. "Then, Patty, mayn't _I_ hope?" "That's a question I _never_ know how to answer," said Patty, demurely; "if you mean that I'm to consider myself bound by any sort of a promise, I most certainly won't!" "No, I don't mean that, dear, but,----well, Patty, won't you wait?" "Of course I'll wait. That's exactly what I mean to do for years and years." "You mean to,--but you're so capricious." "Oh, no! not _that_, of all things! And, anyway, what does capricious mean?" "Well, it means like a butterfly, hovering from one flower to another----" "Oh, you think you're like unto a flower?" "I'll be any kind of a flower you wish, if you'll hover around me like a butterfly." "Well, be a timid little forget-me-not,--that will be lovely." "I'll forget-you-not, all right; but I can't be timid, it isn't my nature." And now they had stopped dancing, and stood in the hall, near the door, for it was almost time for Farnsworth to go. "It isn't because I'm timid," and the six feet three of humanity towered above her, "that I don't grab you up and run away with you, but because----" "Well, because what?" said Patty, daringly. "Because, Apple Blossom," and Bill spoke slowly, "when I see you here in your rightful setting, and surrounded by your own sort of people, I realise that I'm only a great, big----" "Bear," interrupted Patty. "You _are_ like a big bear, Bill! But such a nice, gruff, kind, woolly bear,--and the best friend a girl ever had. But I wish you'd be more of a chum, Little Billee. I like to be good chums with every one of my suitors! It's all very well for Christine to marry; she doesn't care for society, she just only loves Mr. Hepworth." "Some day you'll forget your love for society, because you'll get to love just only one man." "'And it might as well be you,'" hummed Patty, to an old tune. "Patty!" cried Farnsworth, his blue eyes lighting up with sudden joy; "do you mean that?" "No, _I_ never mean anything! Of _course_, I don't mean it,--but if I _did_, I'd say I didn't." "Patty Pink and White! you little scamp! if you tease me like this, how do you suppose I'm ever going to tear myself away to catch that midnight train to Boston?" "Why, you can't get that, Little Billee! it's too late, now!" "No, it isn't; and beside, I _must_ make it." He looked at his watch. "I've just exactly two minutes longer to stay with you." "Two minutes is a long time," said Patty, flippantly. "Yes, it is! it's just long enough for two things I have to do." "What have you to do?" asked Patty, wonderingly, looking up at him, as they stood alone in the hall.