Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/146

 The young man glanced wistfully at the empty seat beside him, and then at the blossoming trees on either hand.

"She'd go well with the apple blossoms. There's so much pink and white about her, and she's so sweet."

Then he fell into a wordless reverie, while his horse ambled lazily on. Thedreamy stretches of pasture land, the soft spring air, and the fragrant apple-blossoms were all blended in his happy mood; but the keynote of this delicate harmony was the pretty girlish face he looked upon with the "inward eye,"—pink and white and very sweet, but with a grace his fancy added, the grace of shy responsiveness. For the sweet face had not yet softened for him; the clear eyes had not yet met his with answering affection. It was only that on such a day as this everything seemed possible to his young ambition.

"She's proud, and she has a good right to be," he admitted to himself. T isn't only that her father's so well off and has been in the legislature. She'd be just the same if her folks were nobodies. A girl like her," he told himself to-day for the hundredth time, "couldn't be expected to marry a man of no account. It stands to reason she'd look high. But a doctor with such a practice as mine, is a different matter."

An attractive smile lit up his face. "I know I could make her happy. There isn't anything I wouldn't do for her. She should have as nice