“How strangely you talk!  I do love you, of course.  You’re my cousin.”

“I don’t care to be loved ‘of course.’  I want to be loved for myself.  Clover, you know what I mean; you must know.  I can afford to marry now; won’t you stay in Colorado and be my wife?”

“I don’t think you know what you are saying, Clarence.  I’m older than you are.  I thought you looked upon me as a sort of mother or older sister.”

“Only fifteen months older,” retorted Clarence.  “I never heard of any one’s being a mother at that age.  I’m a man now, I would have you remember, though I am a little younger than you, and know my own mind as well as if I were fifty.  Dear Clovy,” coaxingly, “couldn’t you?  You liked the High Valley, didn’t you?  I’d do anything possible to make it nice and pleasant for you.”

“I do like the High Valley very much,” said Clover, still with the feeling that Clarence must be half in joke, or she half in dream.  “But, my dear boy, it isn’t my home.  I couldn’t leave papa and the children, and stay out here, even with you.  It would seem so strange and far away.”

“You could if you cared for me,” replied Clarence, dejectedly; Clover’s kind, argumentative, elder-sisterly tone was precisely that which is most discouraging to a lover.

“Oh, dear,” cried poor Clover, not far from tears herself; “this is dreadful!”

“What?” moodily.  “Having an offer?  You must have had lots of them before now.”

“Indeed I never did.  People don’t do such things in Burnet.  Please don’t say any more, Clarence.  I’m very fond of you, just as I am of the boys; but—­”

“But what?  Go on.”

“How can I?” Clover was fairly crying.

“You mean that you can’t love me in the other way.”

“Yes.”  The word came out half as a sob, but the sincerity of the accent was unmistakable.

“Well,” said poor Clarence, after a long bitter pause; “it isn’t your fault, I suppose.  I’m not good enough for you.  Still, I’d have done my best, if you would have taken me, Clover.”

“I am sure you would,” eagerly.  “You’ve always been my favorite cousin, you know.  People can’t make themselves care for each other; it has to come in spite of them or not at all,—­at least, that is what the novels say.  But you’re not angry with me, are you, dear?  We will be good friends always, sha’n’t we?” persuasively.

“I wonder if we can,” said Clarence, in a hopeless tone.  “It doesn’t seem likely; but I don’t know any more about it than you do.  It’s my first offer as well as yours.”  Then, after a silence and a struggle, he added in a more manful tone, “We’ll try for it, at least.  I can’t afford to give you up.  You’re the sweetest girl in the world.  I always said so, and I say so still.  It will be hard at first, but perhaps it may grow easier with time.”

“Oh, it will,” cried Clover, hopefully.  “It’s only because you’re so lonely out here, and see so few people, that makes you suppose I am better than the rest.  One of these days you’ll find a girl who is a great deal nicer than I am, and then you’ll be glad that I didn’t say yes.  There! the rain is just stopping.”