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 on one stem were more essentially together than they.

“She is too dear for one to be satisfied forever with even our charming neighborliness,” he answered gravely. “How long have we lived ‘across the street from each other,’ as they say here, Mrs. Leroy?”

She did not raise her eyes from her white ruffles.

“It is just a year this month,” she said.

“We are such good friends,” he continued in his gentle, reserved voice, “that I hesitate to break into such pleasant relations, even with the chance of making us all happier, perhaps. But I cannot resist the temptation. Could we not make one family, we three?”

A quick, warm color flooded her cheeks and forehead. She caught her breath; her startled eyes met his with a lightning-swift flash of something that moved him strangely.