As a matter of fact the boy could not have selected a less opportune moment for presenting his forlorn hope. Merry had reached that ecstatic height to which martyrs attain. Joan of Arc was no more zealous to sacrifice herself to save Orléans than was Merry to pay the debt of honor her mother owed to Hamlen. It may be that the Maid was influenced in her heart by other motives beyond the "heavenly voices" which are generally accredited; it may be that Merry was more susceptible to the "call" she believed had come to her for some reason other than a willingness for martyrdom,--but in both cases the sincerity of the response was too genuine to be questioned. Billy's infatuated wooing seemed to her like sacrilege, and his mad plan for elopement too ridiculous for discussion. "Let us be friends, dear Billy," she said to him sweetly and gently,--"just friends, you and Philip and I. We'll always have the best of times together, help each other over the hard places, and sympathize with every sorrow which comes to any one of us." "No!" he protested vigorously, kicking viciously at an inoffensive root protruding slightly beneath his foot. "Nix on this brother and sister game; there's nothing in it." "I need you as a friend, Billy,--I need you this very minute!" Billy pricked up his ears at the words and at the pathetic note in Merry's voice; but he did not intend to be caught off his guard. "What do you mean 'need me as a friend'? Want me to run an errand for you? All right, off I go." "No, Billy; I need your sympathy. We're old pals, and ought to stand by each other." He looked at her with a dawning understanding. "Merry," he said, with the conviction of one who has made a great discovery,--"you're unhappy!" "Perhaps," she admitted; "I'm not sure." "I knew it!" he declared with satisfaction. "You are unhappy and I know the reason why: you're in love with me without realizing it. You're fighting against your destiny and you don't understand what the trouble is. That's why you are unhappy." "No, no, Billy; that isn't it." "Yes, it is; you take my word for it. We'll just slip it over on the whole bunch, get married, and then you'll see. You'll be as happy as a lark." "Oh! Billy, I do wish you'd be serious!" "Serious? ha! I should say I was serious! And to show you how sure I am I'm right, I'll make you a sporting proposition: if our getting married doesn't shake your fit of blues then we'll call the whole thing off. What do you say?" Merry laughed in spite of herself. "You certainly are the most impossible boy! You speak of getting married as if it were a set of tennis." "It's easy enough to get a divorce. Why don't you take a chance? Come on, be a sport!" When he found this wooing ineffective, Billy adopted the tragic _motif_. "Every time I think I've picked a rose," he declared disconsolately, "it turns out to be poison ivy; and here I am, stung again!"