"Well," she admitted, "there was some truth in it. They were not exactly engagements. We think in this part of the world that there's something almost too harsh in a flat no--oh! the truth is," she added, suddenly changing her tone, "that girls don't know what they're doing until they find that they have fallen in love themselves." "And do you think by any chance that this revelation may have come to Miss Revelly?" "I know right well it has," answered Jane-Ellen. "Oh, my dear love!" cried Crane and took her into his arms. The kitchen clock, loudly ticking, looked down upon them on one side, and Willoughby, loudly purring, looked up at them from the other, and a good deal of ticking and purring was done before Claudia broke the silence by saying, like one to whom a good idea has come rather late: "But I never said it was through you that the revelation came." "You mustn't say that it hasn't even in fun--not yet." "When may I?" "When we've been married five years." Sometime later, when, that is to say, they had talked a little longer in the kitchen, and then shut it up for the night, and had gone and sat a little while in the parlor so that he might realize that she really was Miss Claudia Revelly, and they had sat a little while in the office so that she might act out for him the impression he had made on her during that first famous interview when he had reproved her conduct, when all these important conversations had taken place, Crane at last took her hand and said gravely: "I mustn't keep you up any longer. Good night, my darling." And he added, after an instant, "I'm so glad--so grateful--that your mind doesn't work like Reed's and Tucker's." "Like theirs--in what way?" "I'm glad you haven't thought it necessary to make any protest at our being here alone." A slight motion of his beloved's shoulders told him she was not fully at one with him. "How foolish, Burton, of course I trust you absolutely, only--" "Only what--" She evidently felt that it was a moment when something decisive must be done, for she came and laid her head, not on his shoulder, but as near as she could reach, which was about in the turn of his elbow. His arm was coldly limp. "Only what?" he repeated. "Only we're not really alone." "What do you mean, Claudia?" "They're all here--my brothers and sister." "What, Smithfield, and Lily, and even Brindlebury?" She nodded in as much space as she had. "Where are they?" he asked. "They're playing Coon-Can in the garret. And oh," she added with a sudden spasm of recollection, "they'll be so hungry! They haven't had anything to eat for ages. I promised to bring them something as soon as the house was quiet, only you put everything out of my head." "We'll give them a party in the dining-room--our first," said Crane. "I'll write the invitation, and we'll send Lefferts to the garret with it." "Don't you think I'd better go up and explain?" said Claudia.