"And what do you think?" laughs Bonnie Bell at Old Lady Wisner then. "His mother thought once I was a hired girl!" Old Lady Wisner for quite a while she'd been playing a sort of accompaniment, talking to herself. First, she starts in and says: "Oh, my laws! Oh, my laws sakes! Oh my laws sakes alive!"--over and over again, she was that scared. And now she begun to say: "Bless my soul! Gawd bless my soul! Oh, Gawd bless my soul!" And she says that right over and over again too. "I told you, Curly," says Bonnie Bell now, "that there'd been a mistake all around. Why didn't you tell my dad I was here?" "Well," says I, "I allowed he'd find it out after a while. Ain't he?" I was sweating awful now and I felt how red my hair was. I toed in so bad my legs was crossed. "I've found out a lot of things," says Old Man Wright now, right sudden and swift. "I been making some mistakes my own self; but you"--and he faces their hired man now--"you passed yourself off for a servant." "That's true, sir," says he. "I was under false colors for a long while and I hated it as much as anyone could. But what could I do? I couldn't find any way to meet her. I didn't want her money and I didn't want her to want mine. Well, that's how it happened. I deceived you all, that's true. I deceived her too--she didn't really know who I was until less than a week ago. Then she came home." "Why didn't you come and tell me at first?" says Old Man Wright. "How could I?" says he. "I knew what that would mean, from all Curly said. Besides, I wanted to win her just for what I was--just for what she was. I wanted to be sure she'd love me the way I wanted, for just what I was. I'm sure now. "But I was going to come and tell you; we came on now for that very thing--the two of us, as you see. It wasn't any pleasure for me to deceive either you or her--I never liked that any more than you did." Old Man Wright he just set looking at him, and he couldn't talk. The young fellow went on. "I loved her the first time I saw her, sir," says he. "I resolved, the first time I ever saw her, that sometime I'd marry her. I did. And we're happy--we're happier than I ever thought anybody could be. How can you bear a grudge against a girl like that--your own girl? She's only done what she thought was right. And it was right too! And it goes!" "So you're the son of this family!" says Old Man Wright, slow. "That can't be helped, neither. I--well, I didn't know. I--I thought you wanted her for her money. I'll go so far as to say that."