“What should I do that for, Mr. Gervase?” said Patty, demurely. “I’m sure I don’t know,” said the poor Softy. “I just thought so. You might have had something you wanted to tell me, or--to say I might come back, or----” “What should I have to tell you, Mr. Gervase?” He looked piteously at her, all astray, and took off his cap, and pushed his fingers through his hair. “I’m sure I don’t know; and yet there was something that I wanted badly to hear. Patty, don’t you make a fool of me like all the rest! If I don’t know what it is, having such a dreadful memory, you do.” “It’s a wonder as you remembered me at all, Mr. Gervase,” said Patty, giving him a little sting in passing. “You! I’d never forget you if I lived to be a hundred. I’d forget myself sooner, far sooner, than I’d forget you.” “But it’s a long time since you’ve seen me, and you’ve forgotten all you wanted of me,” Patty said, with a sharp tone of curiosity in her voice. “No, I don’t forget; I do know what I want--I want to marry you, Patty. I’ve been obeying all your orders, and trying to please the old folks for nothing but that. But it don’t seem to succeed, somehow,” he said, shaking his head; “somehow it don’t seem to succeed.” “They will never give their consent to that, Mr. Gervase!” “No?” he said, doubtfully. “Well, of course you must be right, Patty. They don’t seem to like it when I tell them it’s because of you I’m trying to please them and staying like this at home.” “You should never have said that,” she cried quickly; “you should have made them think it was all because you were so fond of them, and liked best being at home.” “But it would be a lie,” said Gervase, simply, “and mother’s awful sharp; she always finds out when you tell her a crammer. Say I may come to-night; do now, Patty,--I can’t bear it any more.” “But you must bear it, Mr. Gervase,” said Patty; “that is, if you really, really, want _that_ to come true.” “What’s that, Patty?” cried the young man. “Oh, you----!”--it was only a breath, and ended in nothing. Patty saw that mincing matters was of no use. “I mean about us being married,” she said, turning her head away. “If I want it!” he cried, “when you know there is nothing in the world I want but that. Nobody would ever put upon me if I had only you to stand by me, Patty. Tell me what I am to do.”