Page:A Literary Courtship (1893).pdf/187

 the shock of a tremendous conviction. "You don't want my hand."

He dropped it, and then he laughed, that splendid old laugh of his that would make a raven smile.

"Dick, you blessed youngster," said he, "aren't you going to congratulate me?"

"John Brunt," said I, "you haven't done the deed?"

He says my voice was awe-struck, but I know better. Awe was not the emotion I felt at the moment.

"Yes, Dick," he said, with a sudden solemnity, "she has accepted me."

"What! On horseback?" I cried, for that circumstance was really the first thing that struck me.

"Yes, on horseback," he admitted, and then he laughed again.

I did not press for details. In fact I was too much taken aback at first to ask any more questions, and I found John more inclined to talk of the earlier part of the trip. He gave a comical account of little