`` But I did , really . Sometimes it was horrid and sometimes it was funny . It all depended on the man . Dear me , how red and uncomfortable most of them looked -- all but the fifth . He was so cool and business like that he almost surprised me into accepting him . '' `` And -- and what did you feel like , Lina ? '' `` Oh , frightened , mostly -- but I always wanted to laugh too . You must know how it is yourself , Auntie . What did you feel like when somebody proposed to you ? '' Miss Madeline flushed from chin to brow . `` Oh , Lina , '' she faltered as if she were confessing something very disgraceful , yet to which she was impelled by her strict truthfulness , `` I -- I -- never had a proposal in my life -- not one . '' Lina opened her big brown eyes in amazement . `` Why , Aunt Madeline ! And you so pretty ! What was the reason ? '' `` I 've often wondered , '' said Miss Madeline faintly . `` I was pretty , as you say -- it 's so long ago I can say that now . And I had many gentlemen friends . But nobody ever wanted to marry me . I sometimes wish that -- that I could have had just one proposal .
Not that I wanted to marry , you know , I do not mean that , but just so XXXXX it would n't have seemed that I was different from anybody else .
Lina ago as fifth in like of on that to