“Yes—­I’m getting to that.  I took her out for a walk one afternoon, and when we came to the river, we sat down to talk.  It was a perfect day.  I began by saying how sad it was to see a beautiful flower and to know that it was out of one’s reach, or to see anything beautiful and know that one never could possess it.  I led up to the subject by gentle degrees, and then I said:  ’You must have seen that I love you, and you know without my telling you, that I want you to be my wife.  I don’t say I want you to marry me, because I want you to do more than that—­I want you to be my wife.’ (Fine distinction that!)

“Well, she was very much surprised, of course, but she accepted me all right.  Yes, I told her about the other woman, but in such a way that she understood it perfectly.  Lots of other fellows wanted her and I snatched the prize from right under their very noses.  I don’t suppose I’ll ever propose any more now.  I’d never propose to you, even if I were free to do so, because I know you’d refuse me.  You’d refuse me, wouldn’t you?  Somebody else might just as well have me, if you don’t want me.”

[Sidenote:  In Spite of Varied Resources]

Yet in spite of the varied resources at woman’s command, we sometimes hear of one who yearns for the privilege of seeking man in marriage.  The woman who longs for the right to propose is evidently not bright enough to bring a man to the point.

Still worse than this, there are cases on record where women, not reigning queens, have actually proposed to men.  The men who are thus sought in the bonds of matrimony are not slow to tell of it, confining themselves usually to their own particular circle of men friends.  But the news sometimes filters through man’s capacity to keep a secret, and the knowledge is diffused among interested spinsters.

[Sidenote:  Hints]

What men term “hints” are not out of place, for the proposal market would be less active, were it not for “hints.”  But these are seldom given in words—­unless a man happens to be particularly stupid.

When the proposal habit is not firmly fastened upon a man, and he begins to have serious designs upon some one girl, she knows it long before he does.  Incidentally, the family and the neighbours have their suspicions.

Woman, with her strong dramatic instinct, wishes the proposal to occur according to accepted rules.  Hence, if a man shows symptoms of whispering the momentous question in a crowd, he is apt to be delicately discouraged, and if the girl is not satisfied with her own appearance, there will also be postponement.  No girl wants to be proposed to when her hair is dishevelled, her collar wilted, and her soul distraught by pestiferous mosquitoes.

But an ambitious and painstaking girl will arrange the stage for a proposal, with untiring patience, months before it actually happens.  When she practices assiduously all the morning, that she may execute difficult passages with apparent ease in the evening, and willingly turns the freezer that there may be cooling ice opportunely left after dinner, to “melt if somebody doesn’t eat it,” she expects something to happen.