THE most delightful thing about our engagement is that everybody is so pleased with it.” Amy Townsend said this, smiling down at her lover, who, full length on the grass beside her, leaned on his elbow, watching her soft hair blowing across her forehead, and the color of the sun flickering through the shadows, hot on her cheek; for she had closed her fluffy white parasol and taken off her hat here under an oak-tree on the grassy bank of the river.“I should have thought that the fact that we were pleased ourselves was a trifle more important,” he suggested. But Miss Townsend paid no attention to his interruption.“You know, generally, when people get engaged, there are always people who exclaim: either the man is too good for the girl (and you are too good for me, Billy!), or the girl is too good for the man”—“She is; there is no question about that,” the man interrupted.“Be quiet!” the other commanded. “But in our case, everybody approves. You see, in the first place, you are a Parson, and I’m a Worker. That’s what they call me,—the old ladies,—‘a Worker.’ And of course that’s a most appropriate combination to start with.”
