The fact is, Lucy, among her other qualities, good and
bad, was a born housewife, and solicitously careful of certain odds
and ends called property. She found she had dropped one of her gloves
in the garden, and she came back in a state of disproportionate
uneasiness to find it, and nearly ran over David Dodd.
"What _are_ you doing, Mr. Dodd?"
David arose from his Oriental position, and, being a young man whose
impulse always was to tell the simple truth, replied, "I was kissing
the place where you stood so long."
He did not feel he had done anything extraordinary, so he gave her
this information composedly; but her face was scarlet in an instant;
and he, seeing that, began to blush too. For once Lucy's tact was
baffled; she did not know what on earth to say, and she stood blushing
like a girl of fifteen.
Then she tried to turn it off.
"Mr. Dodd, how can you be so ridiculous?" said she, affecting humorous
disdain.
But David was not to be put down now; he was launched.
"I am not ridiculous for loving and worshiping you, for you are worthy
of even more love than any human heart can hold."
"Oh, hush, Mr. Dodd. I must not hear this."
"Miss Lucy, I can't keep it any longer--you must, you shall hear me.
You can despise my love if you will, but you _shall_ know it
before you reject it."
"Mr. Dodd, you have every right to be heard, but let me persuade you
not to insist. Oh, why did I come back?"
"The first moment I saw you, Miss Lucy, it was a new life to me.
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