"Oh! ~do~ stay a little!" gasped the young gentleman, with an awkward sensation of want of employment for his hands. "You said that secrets were told here. I don't want to talk nonsense; I don't indeed; but the truth. ~I've~ a secret to tell you. Should you like to hear it?" "Oh yes!" laughed Miss Patty. "I like to hear secrets." Now, how very absurd it was in Mr. Verdant Green wasting time in beating about the bush in this ridiculously timid way! Why could he not at once boldly secure his bird by a straightforward shot? She did not fly out of his range - did she? And yet, here he was making himself unnecessarily hot and uncomfortable, when he might, by taking it coolly, have been at his ease in a moment. What a foolish young man! Nay, he still further lost time and evaded his purpose, by saying once again to Miss Patty - instead of immediately replying to her observation - "'Pon my word, it's uncommonly hot! don't you think so?" Upon which Miss Patty replied, with some little chagrin, "And was that your secret?" If she had lived in the Elizabethan era she could have adjured him with a "Marry, come up!" which would have brought him to the point without any further trouble; but living in a Victorian age, she could do no more than say what she did, and leave the rest of her meaning to the language of the eyes. "Don't laugh at me!" urged the bashful and weak-minded [AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 249] young man; "don't laugh at me! If you only knew what I feel when you laugh at me, you'd" - "Cry, I dare say!" said Miss Patty, cutting him short with a merry smile, and (it must be confessed) a most wickedly-roguish expression about those bright flashing hazel eyes of hers. "Now, you haven't told me this wonderful secret!" "Why," said Mr. Verdant Green, slowly and deliberately - feeling that his time was coming on, and cowardly anxious still to fight off the fatal words - "you said that you didn't dislike me; and, in fact, that you liked me very much; and" - But here Miss Patty cut him short again. She turned sharply round upon him, with those bright eyes and that merry face, and said, "Oh! how ~can~ you say so? I never said anything of the sort!" "Well," said Mr. Verdant Green, who was now desperate, and mentally prepared to take the dreaded plunge into that throbbing sea that beats upon the strand of matrimony, "whether ~you~ like ~me~ very much or not, ~I~ like ~you~ very much! - very much indeed! Ever since I saw you, since last Christmas, I've - I've liked you - very much indeed."