"So it should, Kate--and so it would, perhaps, could I now reason on any subject. But my doubts are not now of your love, but of your firmness in resisting a control at variance with your duty to yourself. Your words reassure me, however; and now, though with no glad heart, I shall pass over the border, and hope for the better days which are to make us happy." "Not so fast, Master Forrester," exclaimed the voice of old Allen, emerging from the cover of the sycamore, to the shelter of which he had advanced unobserved, and had been the unsuspected auditor of the dialogue from first to last. The couple, with an awkward consciousness, started up at the speech, taken by surprise, and neither uttering a word in reply to this sudden address. "You must first answer, young man, to the charge of advising my daughter to disobedience, as I have heard you for the last half hour; and to elopement, which she had the good sense to refuse. I thought, Master Forrester, that you were better bred than to be guilty of such offences." "I know them not as such, Mr. Allen. I had your own sanction to my engagement with Katharine, and do not see that after that you had any right to break it off." "You do not--eh? Well, perhaps, you are right, and I have thought better of the matter myself; and, between us, Kate has behaved so well, and spoken so prettily to you, and obeyed my orders, as she should have done, that I'm thinking to look more kindly on the whole affair." "Are you, dear father?--Oh, I am so happy!" "Hush, minx! the business is mine, and none of yours.--Hark you, Mark. You must fly--there's no two ways about that; and, between us, there will be a devil of a stir in this matter. I have it from good authority that the governor will riddle the whole nation but he'll have every man, woman, and child, concerned in this difficulty: so that'll be no place for you. You must go right on to the _Massassippi_, and enter lands enough for us all. Enter them in Kate's name, and they'll be secure. As soon as you've fixed that business, write on, say where you are, and we'll be down upon you, bag and baggage, in no time and less." "Oh, dear father--this is so good of you!" "Pshaw, get away, minx! I don't like kisses _jest_ after supper; it takes the taste all out of my mouth of what I've been eating." Forrester was loud in his acknowledgments, and sought by eulogistic professions to do away the ill effect of all that he might have uttered in the previous conversation; but the old man cut him short with his wonted querulousness:-- "Oh, done with your blarney, boy! 'It's all my eye and Betty Martin!' Won't you go in and take supper? There's something left, I reckon." But Forrester had now no idea of eating, and declined accordingly, alleging his determination to set off immediately upon his route--a determination which the old man highly approved of.