“What a just little person you are, Patty,” and Harper looked at her approvingly.  “For all your gaiety and frivolity you have a sound, sweet nature.  And more than that, you have real brains in that curly-pate of yours.”

“Goodness, Ken, you overwhelm me with these sudden compliments!  You’ll quite turn my head; I never could stand flattery!”

“It isn’t flattery,” and Kenneth spoke very earnestly; “it’s the solemn truth.  You are as wise and sensible as you are beautiful.”

“Heavens and earth!  Ken, why these kind words?  What do you want?”

Harper looked at her a moment, and then said, steadily:  “I want you, Patty; I want you more than I can tell you.  I didn’t mean to blurt this out so soon, but I can’t keep it back.  Patty, Patty, can’t you care for me a little?”

Patty was about to reply flippantly, but the look in Harper’s eyes forbade it, and she said, gently, “Kenneth, dear, please don’t!”

“I know what that means; it means you don’t care.”

“But I do, Ken——­”

“Oh, Patty, do you?  Do you mean it?”

Kenneth took her hands in his and his big grey eyes expressed so much love and hope, that Patty was frightened.

“No, I don’t mean it!  I don’t mean anything!  Oh, Ken, please don’t!”

“Don’t say that, Patty, because I must. Listen, dear; I went to see your father to-day.  And I asked him if I might tell you all this.”

Patty looked at him, not quite comprehending.

“You went to see daddy?” she said, wonderingly; “he never told me.”

“Why should he?  Don’t you understand, dear?  I went to him to ask his permission to tell you that I love you, and I want you for my wife.  And your father said that I might tell you.  And now,—­darling——­”

“And now it’s up to me?” Patty tried to speak lightly.

“Exactly that, Patty,” and Kenneth’s face was grave and tender.  “It’s up to you, dear.  The happiness of my whole life is up to you,- -here and now.  What’s the answer?”

Patty sat still a moment, and fairly blinked her eyes in her endeavour to realise the situation.

“Ken,” she said at last, in a small, far-away voice, “are you—­are you—­are you proposing to me?”

“I sure am!” and Kenneth’s head nodded a firm assent; “the sooner you get that fact into your head, the better.  Patty, dear little Patty, tell me,—­don’t keep me waiting——­”

“But, Ken, I don’t want to be proposed to,—­and least of all, by you!”

“Patty, do you mean that?” and Harper’s strained, anxious face took on a look of despair.

“Oh, no, no, I don’t mean that!  At least, not in the way you think!  I only mean we’ve been such good friends for so long, you’re the last one I should think of marrying!”

“And who is the first one you think of marrying?”