Page:Middle Aged Love Stories (IA middleagedlove00bacorich).djvu/102

 to see it. With me—for I certainly couldn’t stay here alone. Why do you suppose I stay, dear lady? I used to wonder myself. No, sit still, don’t get up! I am about to make you an offer of marriage; indeed, I am serious, Miss Gould!

“I don’t see that it’s ridiculous at all. I see every practical reason in favor of it. In the first place, if they are gossiping—oh, yes, Thompson told me, and I wonder that they hadn’t before: these villages are dreadful places—I couldn’t very well stay, you see; and then where should I put all my things? In the second place, I have so much stuff, and there’s no house fit for it but—but ours; and if we were married I could have just twice as much room for it—and I’m getting far too much for my side. In the third place, I find that I can’t look forward with any pleasure to travelling about alone, because, in the fourth place, I’ve grown so tremendously