"How odd! I don't think she could be quite broken-hearted."
"No, and she has apparently forgotten him, and bestowed her affections upon another; a widower named Wert. Mr. Was, Aunt Wealthy usually calls him. They both attend our church, and everybody notices how impossible it seems to be for her to keep her eyes off him; and you can never be five minutes in her company without hearing his name. Didn't she talk of him to-day?"
"Oh, yes, she spoke of Mr. Wert visiting some sick man, to talk and pray with him, and rejoiced that the man did not die till he gave evidence that he was repaired."
"Yes, that sounds like her," laughed Lottie. "She's always getting the wrong word. I told you she never could keep her eyes off Mr. Wert. Well, the other day--three or four weeks ago--coming from church he was behind her; she kept looking back at him, and presently came bump up against a post. She made an outcry, of course everybody laughed, and she hurried off with a very red face. That put an idea into my head, and--" Lottie paused, laughing and blushing--
"I'm half ashamed to tell you, but I believe I will--Nettie and I wrote a letter in a sort of manly hand, signed his initials, and put it into an iron pot that she keeps standing near her back door. The letter requested that she would put her answer in the same place, and she did. Oh, it was rich! such a rapture of delight; and such spelling and such grammar as were used to express it! It was such fun that we went on, and there have been half a dozen letters on each side. I daresay she is wondering why the proposal doesn't come. Ah, Elsie, I see you don't approve; you are as grave as a judge."
"I would prefer not to express an opinion; so please don't ask me."
"But you don't think it was quite right, now do you?"
"Since you have asked a direct question, Lottie, dear," Elsie answered, with some hesitation, "I'll own that it does not seem to me quite according to the golden rule."
"No," Lottie said, after a moment's pause, in which she sat with downcast eyes, and cheeks crimsoning with mortification. "I'm ashamed of myself, and I hope I shall never again allow my love of fun to carry me so far from what is true and kind.
"And so Aunt Wealthy took you out shopping, and secured the benefit of your taste and judgment in the choice of her remnants?" she exclaimed, with a sudden change to a lively, mirthful tone.