my!"

"Spoiled, am I? Thank you, sir, for the compliment! And you don't know
me at all,--don't you? Very well, then I'll say good night, and leave;
for it wouldn't be proper to take a young lady you don't know to the
theatre,--now, would it? Good by!"--making for the door.

"Now don't, Sallie, please."

"Don't what?"

"Don't talk that way."

"Don't yourself, more like. You're just as cross as cross can be, and
disagreeable, and hateful,--all because I happen to know there's some
other man in the world besides yourself, and smile at him now and then.
'Don't,' indeed!"

"Come, Sallie, you're too hard on a fellow. It's your own fault, you
know well enough, if you will be so handsome. Now, if you were an ugly
old girl, or I was certain of you, I shouldn't feel so bad, nor act so
neither. But when there's a lot of hungry chaps round, all gaping to
gobble you up, and even poor little Snipes trying to peck and bite at
you, and you won't say 'yes' nor 'no' to me, how do you expect a man to
keep cool? Can't do it, nohow, and you needn't ask it. Human nature's
human nature, I suppose, and mine ain't a quiet nor a patient one, not
by no manner of means. Come, Sallie, own up; you wouldn't like me so
well as I hope you do if it was,--now, would you?"

Mrs. Franklin smiled, though she had heard not a word of the lovers'