"Yes, I've kept her to the last, because I haven't any right even to hope that she would have me. She is not a widow, and she hasn't a cast in her eye, and she is neither fat nor scrawny; she is just a lovely young girl--" "You speak of her with more enthusiasm than you did of any of the others," she broke in. "Do I know her?" "You ought to know her," he answered; "but I doubt if you think as well of her as I do." "Who is she?" was her swift question. "You won't be offended?" he asked. "Of course not! How absurd! Why should I be offended?" she responded. "Who is she? Who is she?" The Doctor answered seriously, and with a quaver of emotion in his voice, "She is the girl I have loved for a long time, and her name is Minnie Contoit!" The girl did not say anything. Her face was as pale as ever, but there was a light in the depths of her cool gray eyes. "Listen to me once more, Minnie!" implored the young fellow by her side. "You say that none of these other girls will suit me, and I knew that before you said it. I knew that you are the only girl I ever wanted. You promised me your friendship the last time we talked this over, and now I've had a chance to tell you how much I need a wife I have hoped you would look at the matter in a clearer light." She said nothing. He gave a hasty glance backward and he saw that her father and her grandfather were only a hundred yards or so behind them. The reddening sunset on their right cast lengthening shadows across the road. The spring day was drawing to an end, and the hour had come when he was to learn his fate forever. "Minnie," he urged once more, "don't you think it is your duty--as a friend, you know--to give me the wife I ought to have?" She looked at him, and laughed nervously, and then dropped her eyes. "Oh, _well_," she said at last, "if I must!" (1900) [Illustration: In a Hansom] There were two men in the cab as it turned into Fifth Avenue and began to skirt the Park on its way down-town. One of them was perhaps fifty; he had grizzled hair, cold, gray eyes, and a square jaw. The other appeared to be scant thirty; he had soft brown eyes, and a soft brown mustache drooped over his rather irresolute mouth. The younger man was the better-looking of the two, and the better dressed; and he seemed also to be more at home in New York, while the elder was probably a stranger in the city--very likely a Westerner, if the black slouch hat was a true witness.