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 "Come, Polly, don't beat about the bush any longer," he said at last, amused and a little irritated at her half-hints and little feminine finesses. "I know what you want to ask; and as there's no use making a secret of it, I will take my turn in asking. Have I any chance, do you think?"

"Any chance?—about Katy, do you mean? Oh, Ned, you make me so happy."

"Yes; about her, of course."

"I don't see why you should say 'of course,'" remarked his sister, with the perversity of her sex, "when it's only five or six weeks ago that I was lying awake at night for fear you were being gobbled up by that Lilly Page."

"There was a little risk of it," replied her brother, seriously. "She's awfully pretty and she dances beautifully, and the other fellows were all wild about her, and—well, you know yourself how such things go. I can't see now what it was that I fancied so much about her, I don't suppose I could have told exactly at the time; but I can tell without