Lucy Harding by Mary Jane Holmes

Just how Ivan's wooing of Katy sped I had no means of knowing except through Jack, who wrote:

"Ivan has been here and gone. I tell you he is the right kind. I took him everywhere and introduced him to everybody, and told them he was an escaped nihilist, and had been disguised as a lady in satins and silks, and as an old woman with a hump on her back and a gray wig. That made him a lion at once and folks stared at him till he got tired and said: ‘Please drop Alex and Sophie and the escaped nihilist. It sounds too much like "escaped convict. " I am an American citizen, or going to be as soon as I can be naturalized. ' So I dropped 'em. What a handsome fellow he is, with manners which take you right off your feet! Where did he get 'em? I wonder. Father likes him. Katy was stiff as a ramrod at first, but she-I did not mean to listen, but I got in a trap where I could not help myself and heard something about a letter she wrote and he never got. After that they made up. Oh, my! I just doubled up to hear the silly talk-and-kisses! Yes, sir! kisses! loud as firecrackers! and Katy such a modest little girl. I wouldn't have believed it of her!"