Had Clarence Toxteth presented himself and his claims at the moment when the lady of his choice, panting and angry, had just escaped from the presence of her mother, his suit would have been disposed of in the most summary manner. It has been somewhere remarked, however, that women are creatures of changeable minds. By the time afternoon and the Toxteth equipage had arrived, the maiden's heart had so far relented, that she greeted her suitor as kindly as ever. As she rolled along in the luxurious carriage, her nimble fancy busied itself in picturing the future as it might be, if she chose to accept the man by her side. The very keenness of the senses, the fineness of perception which she possessed, made ready avenues by which temptations might enter. With tastes which demanded luxury, with at once the love and the knowledge of beauty, it was hard to deny herself the wealth which would put these things within her reach. To one who had been long the acknowledged leader among her associates, there was, too, a peculiar temptation to accept the hand of the wealthiest man in the village, making a brilliant match, and securing her position for the future. The weakness of Patty's nature that afternoon asserted itself; and all the way to Samoset she was rather silent, following in her mind a brilliant will-o'-the-wisp, which shone and glistened indeed, but led over dangerous morasses.

In the errand in relation to the costumes, the young people found themselves unexpectedly delayed; so that the short October twilight was already falling when they drove out of Samoset. By the time Wilk's Run was reached, it was so dark, that, in the shadow of the carriage-top, their faces were not visible to each other. As the gloom deepened, the courage of the young man increased; and when at length he could not see the eyes of his companion, he was able to speak the words which had all the afternoon been jostling each other in eagerness to obtain utterance. Unabashed with all others, Clarence found in Patty's clear glances a penetration against the embarrassment of which he strove in vain; but, that removed, he spoke.

"It may seem strange for me to say it," he began; "but I've quite made up my mind that we should get along nicely together."

"Have you?" she returned, laughing, but secretly uneasy. "We have never quarrelled, that I remember."

"Oh, no!" he answered, "of course not. I hope you don't think so meanly of me as to believe I'd quarrel with you."

"No," she said, smiling to herself; "but I might have quarrelled with you."

"I didn't mean that," said he. "But we get on so nicely together, that, I say, why shouldn't we be always together, you know?"

He could hardly have chosen a more unfortunate phrase in which to couch his proposal. There came over his companion a sickening sense of what it would be to live always with the man at her side. He attempted to embrace her with the arm not occupied with the reins; but she shrank back into the farthest corner of the carriage, filled with the bitterest self-contempt because she listened to him. This self-reproach was his salvation. The sense of her own weakness in letting him declare his passion, and of her dishonesty in keeping a silence which he might interpret favorably, so overwhelmed her with detestation for herself, that by contrast she for the moment almost regarded Clarence as an injured angel of honesty and devotion. From this odd mingling of feelings arose a sort of pity for her suitor; and, although she answered nothing, she suffered him to say on.

"I love you," he continued, "and I should be a fool if I didn't know that I have something to offer the girl who marries me."

"If I ever married," Patty answered in a constrained voice, "I shouldn't marry for what a man could give me."

"If that is true," she added to herself, "why am I listening to him at all? Oh, what a hypocrite I am!"

"Of course not," Toxteth said, answering the remark he heard. "But a man is no worse for having a few dollars, is he?"

"I suppose not."

"Then, why do you not say that you will marry me?" he demanded almost petulantly.

"I was not aware that you had asked me."

"I have, then. Will you?"

"I cannot tell," she said. "I cannot tell. Don't ask me to say more now."

"I must say," he retorted, rather offended, "that I can't be very much flattered by the way you talk."

"But you know how dreadfully sudden"—

The lie stuck in her throat, and refused to be uttered.

"Is it? How blind you must have been! Couldn't you see all summer that I was smashed?"

Patty was conscious of a wild desire to strangle her lover, and then fling herself under the wheels of the carriage. She longed to get possession of the whip, and lash the gray span into a gallop.

"I am fearfully cold and hungry," she said, feigning a shiver. "Do drive faster."

Clarence was ill pleased with the result of his wooing; yet the fact that he had not been absolutely refused made it needful for him to restrain his impatience. He whipped up his horses, and the carriage bowled along the road in a way that at another time would have filled Patty with delight. As it was, she was conscious of a passing thought that it lay in her power to become the mistress of this dashing equipage, and with the thought came fresh self-condemnation. At her gate she was only coldly civil to Clarence, who drove away, and relieved his feelings by swearing at his horses.

Patty ran up the path to the cottage like a hunted deer. She wanted to get away from Toxteth, to escape as far as possible from the sound of his voice, from the touch of his hand. On the piazza she encountered Tom Putnam, who had been calling at the house.

"How late you are!" he said, taking both her hands in his. "How you tremble! Do you think it prudent to ride in so thin wraps? We have all been worrying about you."

"Let me go!" she exclaimed, snatching her hands from his grasp, and half beside herself with shame and self-loathing. "Let me go! I hate you!"

And she darted into the house.