“I’m glad of it.  It’ll give us the whole afternoon for our walk.”

“Good gracious! if I walk the whole afternoon you’ll have to bring me home in a wheelbarrow!”

“We won’t walk far enough for that.  If you get tired, we’ll sit on a mossy mound in a bosky dell, or some such romantic spot.”

After dinner, Philip held Patty to her promise of going for a walk.  She didn’t care about it especially, really preferring to stay with the gay group gathered on the veranda, but Philip urged it, and Patty allowed herself to be persuaded.

The country all around Fern Falls was beautiful, and a favourite walk was down to the Falls themselves, which were a series of small cascades tumbling down a rocky ravine.

Philip turned their steps this way, and they sauntered along the winding footpath that followed down the side of the falls.

“It is lovely here,” said Patty, as she sat down on a rock for a short rest.  “But I wouldn’t want to live in the country all the year around, would you, Philip?”

“Not if you didn’t like it, dear.  Suppose we have two homes, one in the city and one in the country?”

“Homes for lunatics, do you mean?” and Patty favoured the young man with a wide-eyed gaze of inquiry.

“You know very well what I mean,” and Philip returned her gaze with one of calm regard.  “You know why I brought you out here this afternoon, and you know exactly what I’m going to say to you.  Don’t you?”

“Not exactly,” and Patty drew a roguish frown; “they all word it differently, you know.”

“It is a matter of utter indifference to me how the others word it,” and Philip leaned up comfortably against a rock as he looked at Patty.  “The only thing that engrosses my mind, is whether I myself can word it persuasively enough to make you say yes.  Do you think I can?”

“You never can tell till you try,” said Patty, in a flippant tone.

“Then I’ll try.  But, Patty, dearest, you know it all; you know how I love you, you know how long I have loved you.  Aren’t you ever going to give me the least little encouragement?”

“How can I, Phil, when I don’t feel encouraging a bit?”

“But you will, dear, won’t you?  You remember last winter when we went on that sleighride after the butter and eggs?  Why, Patty, you almost said yes, then.”

“Why, Philip Van Reypen!  I didn’t do anything of the sort!  I had no idea of saying yes, then,—­I haven’t now,—­and I’m not sure that I ever shall have!”

“I’ll wait, Patty,” and Van Reypen spoke cheerfully.  “I’ll wait, Little Girl, because I think a love like mine is bound to win at last.  And I know you’re too young yet to make up your mind.  But, Patty, there isn’t anybody else, is there?”

“Anybody else what?”

“Anybody else who likes you as much as I do.  Is there?”

“Now, Phil, how could I tell that?  When people say they love you heaps and heaps, you never know quite how much to believe, or quite how much is just the influence of the moonlight.”