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 that it would n't have seemed that I was different from anybody else . It is very foolish of me to wish it , I know , and even wicked -- for if I had not cared for the person it would have made him very unhappy . But then , he would have forgotten and I would have remembered . It would always have been something to be a little proud of . '' `` Yes , '' said Lina absently ; her thoughts had gone back to Ralph . That evening a letter was left at the front door of the old Churchill place . It was addressed in a scholarly hand to Miss Madeline Churchill , and Amelia Kent took it in . Amelia had been Miss Madeline 's `` help '' for years and had grown grey in her service .
In Amelia 's loyal eyes Miss Madeline was still young and beautiful ; she never doubted that the letter was XXXXX her mistress .
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