So I told him, and he understood perfectly, although I did not say that I had already plited my troth.

“Of course,” he said.  “If that fails there is another method of aranging things, although you may not care to have the Funeral Baked Meats set fourth to grace the Marriage Table.  If she refuses me, we might become engaged.  You and I.”

To proposals in one day.  Ye gods!

I was obliged therfore to tell him I was already engaged, and he looked very queer, especialy when I told him to whom it was.

“Pup!” he said, in a manner which I excused because of his natural feelings at being preceded.  “And of course this is the real thing?”

“I am not one to change easily, Carter” I said.  “When I give I give freely.  A thing like this, with me, is to Eternaty, and even beyond.”

He is usualy most polite, but he got up then and said: 

“Well, I’m dammed.”

He went away soon after, and left Sis and me to sit alone, not speaking, because when she is angry she will not speak to me for days at a time.  But I found a Magazine picture of a Duchess in a nurse’s dress and wearing a fringe, which is English for bangs, and put it on her dressing table.

I felt that this was subtile and would sink in.

The next day Jane came around early.

“There’s a sail on down town, Bab,” she said.  “Don’t you want to begin laying away underclothes for your TROUSEAU?  You can’t begin to soon, because it takes such a lot.”

I have no wish to reflect on Jane in this story.  She meant well.  But she knew I had decided to buy an automobile, saying nothing to the Familey until to late, when I had learned to drive it and it could not be returned.  Also she knew my Income, which was not princly although suficient.

But she urged me to take my Check Book and go to the sail.

Now, if I have a weakness, it is for fine under things, with ribbon of a pale pink and everything maching.  Although I spent but fifty-eight dollars and sixty-five cents on the TROUSEAU that day, I felt uneasy, especialy as, just afterwards, I saw in a window a costume for a woman chauffeur, belted lether coat and leggings, skirt and lether cap.

I gave a check for it also, and on going home hid my Check Book, as Hannah was always snooping around and watching how much I spent.  But luckaly we were packing for the country, and she did not find it.

During that evening I reflected about marrying Leila off, as the Familey was having a dinner and I was sent a tray to my Chamber, consisting of scrambeled eggs, baked potatos and junket, which considering that I was engaged and even then colecting my TROUSEAU, was to juvenile for words.

I decided this:  that Leila was my sister and therfore bound to me by ties of Blood and Relationship.  She must not be married to anyone, therfore, whom she did not love or at least respect.  I would not doom her to be unhappy.