The week which Patty had asked of Clarence Toxteth had expired; and that young lady was in her chamber, giving the last touches to her toilet before going down to the parlor to meet her suitor. The days seemed to her to have passed with flying feet. She had occupied herself much more in thinking how short a space she had for deliberation than in considering the important question she was now to answer. She therefore found herself no nearer a conclusion when Clarence called than when she had dismissed him a week earlier.

Her toilet completed, the girl leaned her face upon her hands, and regarded herself in the mirror.

"I must decide," she mused. "I must give him an answer. I never can say yes. Suppose he should want to touch me, or to kiss me. Ugh! I should die! How red my face is! It must be because I hurried so. The color is becoming, though. I ought to go down, but it will do him good to wait a while; and I must think.

"Oh, I wish a woman was independent as a man is! Then I needn't be engaged to anybody. But I never can care for anybody as I did for Tom. How could Tom be so—how could he act so! I must be engaged to Clarence to show Tom that I'm not heart-broken for him. Oh, how I hate Tom Putnam!—at least I hate the way he acts. Hate makes more matches than love, I dare say. What nonsense! Let me think: I must think. I'm sure Clarence is nice. He has so refined personal habits! And then his wife could have any thing money could buy. Wife? There's time enough to think of that: this is only the engagement, and I dare say one gets fond of any man by being engaged to him long enough. Perhaps I should get to be willing to be Mrs. Toxteth. I'm sure I hope so. This comb is certainly in a little bit too high. There! I am pretty, but a girl is despised forever that will own she thinks herself so. Dear me! I must go down stairs and see that horrid Clarence. I'm sure I don't see why he need be forever bothering me for an answer. How unhappy I am! and I'm afraid I deserve it. I wonder if he wouldn't give me a week longer. No, I don't think I quite dare to ask for that: I've treated him shamefully now. But I'll make amends: I'll say yes, but I do hate to awfully."

And down stairs swept the young lady to meet the suitor to whom she had decided to plight her troth. He rose to meet her, uttering some polite commonplace, and she began to rattle on about the gossip of Montfield. She dreaded the question he had come to ask; yet soon she began to experience an irritated desire that he would speak, and end this suspense. She carried that fatal yes as a burden of which she would fain be rid as quickly as possible. At last the question came.

"Have you thought that the week you asked is up?" Clarence inquired.

"I remembered it," she answered, dropping her eyelids.

"You haven't given me my answer."

"Did you expect me to come to you with it?" she asked, fencing to gain time.

"Of course not; but I have come for it."

"I am not worth so much trouble," she said.

"Is that my answer?"

"Certainly it isn't," she replied. "But why must you be in such haste about it?"

"Haste about it!" he repeated. "I should think I had waited long enough. If I am not worth answering, I cannot be worth marrying."

His indignation influenced Patty in his favor; but alas! his last word made her shudder.

"Oh! It isn't that," she ambiguously exclaimed.

"But do you mean to say yes, or no?" Clarence demanded with some irritation.

Patty looked at him with dilated eyes.

"It must come," she thought, "and then I shall be engaged to him, and he'll have the right to kiss me; but I must say it."

She opened her lips to give the fatal assent.

"No," they said, it seemed to her entirely without her volition.

"What!" he exclaimed.

"I said 'no,'" she repeated, feeling as if amare had been removed from her breast. "I like you very much, Clarence; but I don't think we are quite suited for each other."

"You don't!" he retorted, smarting with wounded love and vanity. "Then why couldn't you say so at once, and not keep me making a fool of myself for nothing all summer?"

"I own I've treated you horridly," she said humbly. "And I beg your pardon; but I didn't know my own mind."

"You ought to have known," he continued, becoming more angry as she grew more yielding. "You may go farther and fare worse, Patty Sanford. I might have known you were leading me on. I always thought you were a flirt, but I did think you'd treat an old friend decently. Thank Heaven, I needn't go to the world's end for a wife!"

"Indeed!" Mistress Sanford said, drawing herself up with fine dignity. "I congratulate you on your escape from the snare into which I have been leading you. I might have known your penetration was too keen not to see through the wiles of a mere flirt."

"I—that is"—he stammered in confusion.

"I am very sorry I have taken so much of your time," she continued. "But then, as you just remarked so happily, it isn't as if you had to go to the world's end to find a wife."

"I didn't mean" began he, thoroughly abashed,—"I didn't mean"—

"Very likely not," she interrupted. "I didn't either. I beg your pardon," she added more calmly. "Did I show you those views aunt Shasta sent us from Paris last week?"

"Yes—I don't know," Clarence replied. "I must be going."

"I am very glad you called," Patty said. "I have enjoyed it very much. You must be neighborly. You know the Brecks are gone; and Flossy is so absorbed in Burleigh that I am sure to be lonesome."

And she bowed out the rejected suitor, who went home with a tingling sensation about his ears.

"I might have known," he muttered to himself; "but her mother was so sure she'd have me. Confound it! It isn't safe to trust anybody's opinion of a woman but your own, and it's best to be d——d doubtful of that."

As for Patty, she went back to her chamber bitterly ashamed of herself, yet happier than she had been for many a long day.