It was so true, so limpid, this noble flame that burned in her, that she almost forgot Blair's behavior; the only thing she thought of was her plan, and the difficulty of putting it into the cold limits of pen and ink! But with much joyous underlining of important words she did succeed in stating it to him. She told him, not only the practical details, but with a lovely, untrammelled outpouring of her soul which was sacrificial, she told him that she wanted to be his wife. She had no reserves; it was an elemental moment, and the matter of what is called modesty had no place in her ardent purity. It rarely has a place in organic impulses. In connection with death, or birth, or love, modesty is only a rather puerile self-consciousness. So Elizabeth, who had never been self-conscious in her life, told David, with perfect simplicity, that she "wanted to be married." She said she had "worked the money part of it out," and according to her latest estimate of how much, or rather how little, they could live on, it was possible. "You will say, we haven't even as much as this," she wrote, after she had stated what seemed to be the minimum income; then, triumphantly: "_we have!_ the money Uncle is going to give me on my birthday! If we live on it, instead of hoarding it up, it will last _at least_ two years! I've talked to Uncle about it, and I'm pretty sure he will consent; but you'd better write and urge him,--_just insist!_" Then she approached the really difficult matter of making David agree to live on money that was not his. She admitted that she knew how he felt on such matters. "And you are all wrong," she declared candidly, "wrong, and a goose. But, so long as you do feel so, why, you needn't any longer. For I am going to give the money to you. It is to be yours, _not mine_. You can't refuse to use the money that is _yours_, that comes to you as a 'gift'? It will be as much _yours_ as if somebody left it to you in their will, and you can burn it up, if you want to!" And when "business" had been written out, her heart spoke: "Dear" (she stopped to kiss the paper), "dear, I hope you won't burn it up, because I am tired of waiting, and I hope you are too;"--when she wrote those last words, she was suddenly shy; "Uncle is to give me the money on my birthday--let us be married that day. I _want_ to be married. I am all yours, David, all my soul, and all my mind, and all my body. I have nothing that is not yours to take; so the money is yours. No, I will not even give it to you! it belongs to you already--as I do. Dear, come and take it--and me. I love you--love you--love you. _I want you to take me_. I want to be your wife. Do you understand? I _want_ to belong to you. I _am_ yours."