s of the
morning, that I felt I could 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. Vincent, but she said
it was nothing new to her, for it was plain enough on the day when we
first met you here that you were letting the house to Cora, and that
she had not spoken of it to me because she was afraid I might think it
wrong to accept the favorable and unusual arrangements you were making
with us if I suspected the reason for them. We talked over the matter,
but, of course, we could do nothing, because there was nothing to do,
and Mrs. Vincent was quite sure you would write to us from Europe. But
when my man Ambrose told me he had seen some one working about the
place in the very early morning, and that, as it was a gentleman, he
supposed it must be the landlord, for nobody else would be doing such
things, Mrs. V