"Isaac Appleby, you can't be in earnest?" I cried incredulously. "You
couldn't be so mean?"
"I am in earnest. I want a wife, and I am going to have one. You two
will stay up there, and Julius Caesar here will watch you until one of
you makes up her mind to take me. You can settle it between
yourselves, and let me know when you have come to a decision."
And with that Isaac walked jauntily into his new house.
"The man can't mean it!" said Melissa. "He is trying to play a joke on
us."
"He does mean it," I said gloomily. "An Appleby never says anything he
doesn't mean. He will keep us here until one of us consents to marry
him."
"It won't be me, then," said Melissa in a calm sort of rage. "I won't
marry him if I have to sit on this roof for the rest of my life. You
can take him. It's really you he wants, anyway; he asked you first."