‘By Jove, we are in luck!’ he said.  ’Here’s the pine room, as we used to call it when you played you were Marie Antoinette, and had your head cut off.  I can remember just how I felt when your white sun-bonnet, with Mrs. Crawford’s false hair pinned it in, dropped into the basket, and how awful it seemed when you played dead so long that we almost thought you were; and when you came to light, the way you imitated the cries of a French mob, I would have sworn there were a hundred voices instead of one yelling:  “Down with the nobility!” You were a wonderful actress, Jerrie; and it is a marvel you have not gone upon the stage.’

While he talked he was groping for the bench under the pines, where they sat down, Dick seating himself upon the parasol, which Jerrie had left there that morning after her interview with Tom.

‘Hallo! what’s this?’ he said, drawing the parasol from under him.  ’An umbrella, as I live!  We are in luck.  What good fairy do you suppose left it here for us?’

Jerrie could not tell him that she had left it there, and she said nothing; while he opened and held it so that every drop of rain which slipped from it fell upon her neck and trickled down her back.  ’Great Caesar! that was a roarer!’ Dick said, as the peal of thunder which had so frightened Ann Eliza burst over their heads, and, echoing through the woods, went bellowing off in the direction of the river, ’That’s a stunner! but I rather like it, and like being here, too, with you, if you don’t mind it.  I’ve wanted a chance to speak to you alone, ever since—­well, ever since this morning, when I saw you in that bewildering costume that showed your feet and your arms so—­you know, with that thing like a napkin pinned up in front, and that jimcrack on your head, and the red stockings—­and—­and—­’

Dick was getting bewildered and did not quite know what he was saying, so he stopped and waited for Jerrie to reply.  But Jerrie did not speak, because of the sudden alarm which possessed her.  She could not see Dick’s face, but in his voice she had recognized a tone heard in Tom’s that morning when she sat with him under pines as she was sitting now with Dick and he had asked her to be his wife.  Something told her that Dick was feeling for her hands, which she resolutely put behind her out of his way, and as he could not find them, he wound his arm around her and held her fast, while he told her how much he loved her and wanted her for his wife.

‘I believe I have loved you,’ he said, ’ever since the day I first saw you at the inquest, and you flew so like a little cat at Peterkin when he attacked Harold.  I used to be awfully jealous of Hal, for fear he would find in you more than a sister, but that was before he and Maude got so thick together.  I guess that’s a sure thing, and it makes me bold to tell you what I have.  Why are you so silent Jerrie?  Don’t you love me a little?  That is all I ask at first, for I know I can make you love me a great deal in time.  I will be so kind and true to you.  Jerrie, and father, and mother, and Nina will be so glad.  Speak to me, Jerrie, and say you will try to love me, if you do not now.’