you once that I never broke my promises? But you must give me time, George; you must not hurry me. I am not very old yet, you know; and love isn't easy to learn all at once. I wouldn't promise you anything I did not mean to stick to; but if I said to-day that I loved you, and would marry you, it would be wrong, for I do not think I am the least in the world in love with you, do you?"
"No," he says, with a rueful sigh, "there can't be very much doubt on that score!"
"So," I say with alacrity, "I will wait till I am in love with you before we settle it all. Don't you think it would be much pleasanter?"
"For you, perhaps," he says, "but I know my own heart."
"Do you know," I say diffidently, "that sometimes I think you don't go the right way to work to make me love you? If you were to be cross sometimes, or—or shake me—or something—I don't exactly know what. Perhaps if you made me jealous now, for a girl hates any one else to have her lover, even if she does not want him herself, you know———"
I pause. After all it is not easy to instruct a young man how to woo you; but I am so really anxious to fall in love with George, and so sorry for him, that I would take any pains to cultivate the gentle passion.
"I don't think you meant that," says George, with as much scorn as his manly, pleasant voice will borrow; "or if you did, I can't follow you. I know there are women who don't care a rap for a man as long as he is entirely their own, but directly he turns up his nose at them they are head over heels in love with him; but I never thought you were one of that sort, Nell. Now, when a man loves a girl he doesn't like her any the better, I can tell you, for staring at and hankering after this man and that. All her value is gone in his eyes if she does not stick to him in thought, word, and deed. Her flirtations with any one else provoke disgust, not love; and she makes him feel not so much piqued as small."
