"
"You have asked him?" queried Abner.
"I wanted to know," explained Ann. "I thought there might be
something in him that I could like."
"Why do you want to like him?" asked Abner, wondering how much she
had guessed.
"I know," wailed Ann. "You are hoping that when I am grown up I
shall marry him. And I don't want to. It's so ungrateful of me."
"Well, you're not grown up yet," Abner consoled her. "And so long
as you are feeling like that about it, I'm not likely to want you to
marry him."
"It would make you so happy," sobbed Ann.
"Yes, but we've got to think of the boy, don't forget that," laughed
Abner. "Perhaps he might object."
"He would. I know he would," cried Ann with conviction. "He's no
better than I am."
"Have you been asking him to?" demanded Abner, springing up from his
chair.
"Not to marry me," explained Ann. "But I told him he must be an
unnatural little beast not to try to like me when he knew how you
loved me."
"Helpful way of putting it," growled Abner. "And what did he say to
that?"
"Admitted it," flashed Ann indignantly. "Said he had tried."
Abner succeeded in persuading her that the path of dignity and
virtue lay in her dismissing the whole subject from her mind.
He had made a mistake, so he told himself.
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