I feel terribly upset . How very strange that it should come so soon after our talk this morning ! I want you to read it ! Perhaps I ought not to show it to anyone -- but I would like you to see it . '' Lina took the letter and read it through . It was unmistakably a proposal of marriage and was , moreover , a very charming epistle of its kind , albeit a little stiff and old-fashioned . `` How funny ! '' said Lina when she came to the end . `` Funny ! '' exclaimed Miss Madeline , with a trace of indignation in her gentle voice . `` Oh , I did n't mean that the letter was funny , '' Lina hastened to explain , `` only that , as you said , it is odd to think of it coming so soon after our talk . '' But this was a little fib on Lina 's part . She had thought that the letter or , rather , the fact that it had been written to Miss Madeline , funny . The Rev. Cecil Thorne was Miss Madeline 's pastor . He was a handsome , scholarly man of middle age , and Lina had seen a good deal of him during her summer in Lower Wentworth . She had taught the infant class in Sunday School and sometimes she had thought that the minister was in love with her . But she must have been mistaken , she reflected ; it must have been her aunt after all , and the Rev. Cecil Thorne 's shyly displayed interest in her must have been purely professional . `` What a goose I was to be afraid he was in love with me ! '' she thought . Aloud she said , `` He says he will call tomorrow evening to receive your answer . ''
`` And , oh , what can I say XXXXX him ? ''
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