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So she sat on an old flower-pot and he stood up in front of her. He had his hat stuffed under his arm and his hair looked more like a chicken than ever—it stood up all around his head.

“You must know what I’m going to say,” that’s the way he began. Then he waited awhile and then he stuck his hands into his pockets and teetered back and forth. Of course he didn’t know it, but he did. And then he proposed. You may not believe it, but this is exactly what he said to her. I shouldn’t believe it myself.

“I don’t think I’m very hard to live with,” he said, “‘my sister says not, and she’s a very nice girl—Ethel, you know. I think you’d like each other. The house is my own. I—I hope you will—would you? That is, I mean, do you think you could?”

That was all. And his hands in his pockets all the time, Of course I don’t think it’s necessary to kneel down every time, though Connie does; but I never heard of anybody doing it like that—never. She wasn’t looking at him at all, so perhaps it wasn’t quite so bad.

And what do you think she answered?

“I’m sure you would be very nice to live with,” she said, “and I’d love to meet your sister!”

Well, if you call that making love, all right; but I don’t, that’s all. I was ashamed of both of them.

Then he sat down on the ground by her, all curled up with his legs under him, and they sort of whispered, so I couldn’t hear very well, but it was nothing in particular. They might just as well have talked out loud. He took hold of her hand and patted it, and of course that was something. Rh