"Then you know," I exclaimed, stepping nearer to her, "why it is I did not leave this country as I intended, why it was impossible for me to tear myself away from this house, why it is that I have been here every morning, hovering around and doing the things I have been doing?"She looked up at me, and with her eyes she said, "How could Ihelp knowing?" She might have intended to say something with her lips, but I took my answer from her eyes, and with the quick impulse of a lover I stopped her speech.
"You have strange ways," she said presently, blushing and gently pressing back my arm. "I haven't told you a thing.""Let us tell each other everything now," I cried, and we seated ourselves in the hammock.
It was a quarter of an hour later and we were still sitting together in the hammock.
"You may think," said she, "that, knowing what I did, it was very queer for me to come out to you this morning, but Icould not help it. You were getting dreadfully careless, and were staying so late and doing things which people would have been bound to notice, especially as father is always talking about our enjoying the fresh hours of the morning, that I felt Icould not let you go on any longer. And when it came to that fan business I saw plainly that you must either immediately start for Europe or--""Or what?" I interrupted.
"Or go to my father and regularly engage yourself as a--"I do not know whether she was going to say "gardener" or not, but it did not matter. I stopped her.
It was perhaps twenty minutes later, and we were standing together at the edge of the woods. She wanted me to come to the house to take breakfast with them.
"Oh, I could not do that!" I said. "They would be so surprised. I should have so much to explain before I could even begin to state my case.""Well, then, explain," said she. "You will find father on the front piazza. He is always there before breakfast, and there is plenty of time. After all that has been said here, I cannot go to breakfast and look commonplace while you run away.""But suppose your father objects?" said I.
"Well, then you will have to go back and take breakfast with your miller," said she.
I never saw a family so little affected by surprises as those Vincents. When I appeared on the front piazza the old gentleman did not jump. He shook hands with me and asked me to sit down, and when I told him everything he did not even ejaculate, but simply folded his hands together and looked out over the railing.
"It seemed strange to Mrs. Vincent and myself," he said, "when we first noticed your extraordinary attachment for our daughter, but, after all, it was natural enough.""Noticed it!" I exclaimed. "When did you do that?""Very soon," he said. "When you and Cora were cataloguing the books at my house in town I noticed it and spoke to Mrs.
