money anyhow." Fate never winced.

"Run away to sea," whispered Mr. Polly, but he knew he wasn't man
enough.

"Cut my blooming throat."

Some braver strain urged him to think of Miriam, and for a little
while he lay still....

"Well, O' Man?" said Johnson, when Mr. Polly came down to breakfast,
and Mrs. Johnson looked up brightly. Mr. Polly had never felt
breakfast so unattractive before.

"Just a day or so more, O' Man--to turn it over in my mind," he said.

"You'll get the place snapped up," said Johnson.

There were times in those last few days of coyness with his destiny
when his engagement seemed the most negligible of circumstances, and
times--and these happened for the most part at nights after Mrs.
Johnson had indulged everybody in a Welsh rarebit--when it assumed so
sinister and portentous an appearance as to make him think of suicide.
And there were times too when he very distinctly desired to be
married, now that the idea had got into his head, at any cost. Also he
tried to recall all the circumstances of his proposal, time after
time, and never quite succeeded in recalling what had brought the
thing off. He went over to Stamton with a becoming frequency, and
kissed all his cousins, and Miriam especially, a great deal, and found
it very stirring and refreshing. They all appeared to know; and Minnie