I've wanted a chance to speak to you alone, ever since--well, ever since this morning, when I saw you in that bewildering costume that showed your feet and your arms so--you know, with that thing like a napkin pinned up in front, and that jimcrack on your head, and the red stockings--and--and--' Dick was getting bewildered and did not quite know what he was saying, so he stopped and waited for Jerrie to reply.

But Jerrie did not speak, because of the sudden alarm which possessed her.

She could not see Dick's face, but in his voice she had recognized a tone heard in Tom's that morning when she sat with him under pines as she was sitting now with Dick and he had asked her to be his wife.

Something told her that Dick was feeling for her hands, which she resolutely put behind her out of his way, and as he could not find them, he wound his arm around her and held her fast, while he told her how much he loved her and wanted her for his wife.
'I believe I have loved you,' he said, 'ever since the day I first saw you at the inquest, and you flew so like a little cat at Peterkin when he attacked Harold.

I used to be awfully jealous of Hal, for fear he would find in you more than a sister, but that was before he and Maude got so thick together.