"Your Uncle Burton was of some importance to _us_," she told him. "Miss Oldham at the _pension_ said that she had just met a new American, down from Genoa, and when I heard your name I said, 'Oh, I used to know an old Mr. Crittenden who ran a wood-working factory up in Vermont, where I used to visit an old cousin of mine,' and that was why Miss Oldham introduced us, that silly way, as cousins." He said, pouncingly, "You're running on, inconsequently, just to divert my mind from asking you again who or what Toucle is." "You can ask and ask all you like," she defied him, laughing. "I'm not going to tell you. I've got to have _some_ secrets from you, to keep up the traditions of self-respecting womanhood. And anyhow I couldn't tell you, because she is different from everything else. You'll see for yourself, when we get there. If she's still alive." She offered a compromise, "I'll tell you what. If she's dead, I'll sit down and tell you about her. If she's still alive, you'll find out. She's an Ashley institution, Toucle is. As symbolic as the Cumean Sybil. I don't believe she'll be dead. I don't believe she'll _ever_ be dead." "You've let the cat out of the bag enough so I've lost my interest in her," he professed. "I can make a guess that she's some old woman, and I bet you I won't see anything remarkable in her. Except that wild name. Is it Miss Toucle, or Mrs. Toucle?" The girl burst into laughter at this, foolish, light-hearted mirth which drenched the air all about her with the perfume of young gaiety. "Is it Miss Druid, or Mrs. Druid?" was all she would say. She looked up at him, her eyes shining, and cried between her gusts of laughter, as if astonished, "Why, I do believe we are going to be happy together. I do believe it's going to be fun to live with you." His appalled surprise that she had again fallen into the pit of incredulity was, this time, only half humorous. "For God's sake, what _did_ you think!" She answered, reasonably, "Well, nobody ever is happy together, either in books or out of them. Of all the million, million love-affairs that have happened, does anybody ever claim any one to have been happy?" His breath was taken away. He asked helplessly, "Well, why _are_ you marrying me?" She replied very seriously, "Because I can't help myself, dear Neale. Isn't that the only reason you're marrying me?" He looked at her long, his nostrils quivering a little, gave a short exclamation which seemed to carry away all his impatience, and finally said, quietly enough, "Why, yes, of course, if that's the way you want to put it. You can say it in a thousand thousand different ways."