Page:Comin' Thro' the Rye (1898).djvu/476

468 "And who may that be? I did not know Dolly had ever seen anybody!"

"George," I say, lowering my voice, "will you promise me not to be angry with me?"

"Don't try me too far."

"Well, then, don't you think Dolly is a little like me, George?'

"Not a bit! No one would ever know you were sisters!"

"Oh!" I say, disappointedly. "Don't you think, though, that on the whole blue eyes are prettier than green ones, and rosy cheeks than pale ones?"

"To some people's taste they may be."

"But not to yours?"

"No."

"Oh!" I say again, dismally.

"You have not told me yet what you are going to make me angry about."

"I can't tell you," I say, slowly. "Yes I will, though; I only thought, George (this in a prodigious hurry), that for she is very sweet, you know, and a hundred times as pretty as ever I was-that perhaps, after a bit, you might get to like her as well as you did me."

"Did? Was there ever any past tense in my love for you? You remind me, Nell," he goes on, looking at me with half-sad, half-bitter eyes, "of a story I once heard of a man who proposed for a young lady to her father, and on finding her to be already engaged, the suitor said he was not at all particular, any one of her sisters would do just as well; it didn't matter a pin to him which he married. Do you think I am so accommodating? There never was but one girl in the world that I wanted, and as I can't get her I'll have nobody."

"Dolly would never forgive me if she knew what I had done," I say, my cheeks crimson with vexation; "and I have wounded you