CHAPTER I.
A MAN

It was the most extraordinary thing that ever happened to anyone. I really hardly know how to begin to tell about it. I was doing my hair before the looking-glass in my bedroom—and I could not help noticing that it was rather a curious colour, though my eyes were nearly blinded by tears of rage, and something else. The rage was because Lilian and Audrey and Eveleen and Doris, and mother too, had been saying all the nasty things they could to me. The something else was because Benjamin Morgan had asked me to be his wife.

There—it’s out! My first proposal of marriage—my very, very first! and that it should have come from him! It made me go hot all over with shame and disgust and a most singular variety of feelings.

They had been teasing me about him for ever so long; congratulating me—of course, with the most biting sarcasm—on having made a conquest at last. I am twenty-three, and nearly twenty-four, and no man ever paid me the least attention—until Mr Morgan began. And I wished he had not; because they made the most dreadful fun of him, and teased me more than they had ever done before—which is saying more than words can describe—on account of his being a hunchback. At least, he’s not exactly a hunchback, though they say he is: but I do like to be accurate, and I don’t care who laughs at me, and I’m quite sure that it’s only one shoulder which is a little higher than the other. There’s no denying that he is rather short for a man. His nurse dropped him when he was a baby. For years they never thought that he would live. If it were not for that there would be nothing against him. He has a nice face,—no one can say that there is anything the matter with that; with big black eyes, and the sweetest smile, and the pleasantest voice. He was the most thoughtful person I ever met. As generous as could be. He never said disagreeable things about anyone. I never saw him impatient, or out of temper. Though he had a way, sometimes, of making you understand that he was hurt by something which had been said or done, which made you feel that you were a perfect wretch.

If he had not been crooked! They never ceased to laugh at me because of “Crooked Ben,”—as they loved to call him. It got to such a state that I grew to hate the sight of him. At the mere mention of his name I would go hot all over;—they were always dragging him in by the head and ears! Persisting—in season and out of season!—in telling me how glad they were that I had some sort of an admirer at last, even if it wasn’t a very straight one. That made me so wild that I would declare that he was no admirer of mine, though I could not help but suspect the contrary. Then, of course, they would go on worse than ever, saying that having a lover like that was almost like