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 terior of yours you’ve got a dear, loyal, womanly little soul. Why do you hide it so?”

“I can’t help it, Queen Anne. You are right—I’m not frivolous at heart. But there’s a sort of frivolous skin over my soul and I can’t take it off. As Mrs. Poyser says, I’d have to be hatched over again and hatched different before I could change it. But Jonas knows the real me and loves me, frivolity and all. And I love him. I never was so surprised in my life as I was when I found out I loved him. I’d never thought it possible to fall in love with an ugly man. Fancy me coming down to one solitary beau. And one named Jonas! But I mean to call him Jo. That’s such a nice, crisp little name. I couldn’t nickname Alonzo.”

“What about Alec and Alonzo?”

“Oh, I told them at Christmas that I never could marry either of them. It seems so funny now to remember that I ever thought it possible that I might. They felt so badly I just cried over both of them—howled. But I knew there was only one man in the world I could ever marry. I had made up my own mind for once and it was real easy, too. It’s very delightful to feel so sure, and know it’s your own sureness and not somebody else’s.”

“Do you suppose you’ll be able to keep it up?”

“Making up my mind, you mean? I don’t know, but Jo has given me a splendid rule. He says, when I’m perplexed, just to do what I would wish I had done when I shall be eighty. Anyhow, Jo can make