_Ransom_: “—It isn’t a thing that I care to shout from the house-tops.” He returns from the window to the chimney-piece. “I wrote the rudest kind of note, and sent back her letter and her money in it. She had said that she hoped our acquaintance was not to end with the summer, but that we might sometimes meet in Boston; and I answered that our acquaintance had ended already, and that I should be sorry to meet her anywhere again.” _Grinnidge_: “Well, if you wanted to make an ass of yourself, you did it pretty completely.” _Miss Reed_, whispering: “How witty he is! Those men are always so humorous with each other.” _Ransom_: “Yes; I didn’t do it by halves.” _Miss Reed_, whispering: “Oh, _that’s_ funny, too!” _Grinnidge_: “It didn’t occur to you that she might feel bound to pay you for the first half-dozen, and was embarrassed how to offer to pay for them alone?” _Miss Reed_: “How he _does_ go to the heart of the matter!” She presses _Miss Spaulding’s_ hand in an ecstasy of approval. _Ransom_: “Yes, it did—afterward.” _Miss Reed_, in a tender murmur: “Oh, _poor_ Oliver!” _Ransom_: “And it occurred to me that she was perfectly right in the whole affair.” _Miss Reed_: “Oh, how generous! how noble!” _Ransom_: “I had had a thousand opportunities, and I hadn’t been man enough to tell her that I was in love with her.” _Miss Reed_: “How can he say it right out so bluntly? But if it’s true”— _Ransom_: “I _couldn’t_ speak. I was afraid of putting an end to the affair—of frightening her—disgusting her.” _Miss Reed_: “Oh, how little they know us, Nettie!” _Ransom_: “She seemed so much above me in every way—so sensitive, so refined, so gentle, so good, so angelic!” _Miss Reed_: “There! _Now_ do you call it eavesdropping? If listeners never hear any good of themselves, what do you say to that? It proves that I haven’t been listening.” _Miss Spaulding_: “’Sh! They’re saying something else.” _Ransom_: “But all that’s neither here nor there. I can see now that under the circumstances she couldn’t as a lady have acted otherwise than she did. She was forced to treat our whole acquaintance as a business matter, and I had forced her to do it.” _Miss Reed_: “You _had_, you poor thing!” _Grinnidge_: “Well, what do you intend to do about it?” _Ransom_: “Well”— _Miss Reed_: “’Sh!” _Miss Spaulding_: “’Sh!” _Ransom_: “—that’s what I want to submit to you, Grinnidge. I must see her.” _Grinnidge_: “Yes. I’m glad _I_ mustn’t.” _Miss Reed_, stifling a laugh on _Miss Spaulding’s_ shoulder: “They’re actually _afraid_ of us, Nettie!” _Ransom_: “See her, and go down in the dust.” _Miss Reed_: “My very words!” _Ransom_: “I have been trying to think what was the very humblest pie I could eat, by way of penance; and it appears to me that I had better begin by saying that I have come to ask her for the money I refused.” _Miss Reed_, enraptured: “Oh! doesn’t it seem just like—like—inspiration, Nettie?”