"I have indeed. I hope I may say that she and I are becoming good friends. I am learning to understand her; though, believe me, I don't speak boastingly. However, this morning we got on famously together. But won't you continue and tell me what happened in the road when Hartley rode up beside you?" "Oh, nothing happened; really nothing! Nothing could have happened, for the excellent reason that I ran away from him. It was n't what he did or said; it was the fear of what he might say!" "If it had been Mr. Dick who had joined you in exactly the same way in the highway, you would not have minded in the least, Miss Hollister. Is n't that the truth?" Her hand that had rested on the pommel of her saddle dropped to her side, and she stood erect, her eyes wide with wonder. "What do you mean?" she gasped. "I mean exactly what I have said; that if it had been that strutting young philosopher from the West you would--well, you would have allowed him to say what was in his mind, no matter whether it had been his latest thought on Kantianism, the weather, or his admiration for yourself. Am I not right?" "I wonder, I wonder"--she faltered, drawing away, the better to observe me. "You wonder how much I know! To relieve your mind without parleying further, I will say to you that I know everything." "Then Aunt Octavia must have told you; and that seems incredible. It was distinctly understood"-- "Your aunt told me nothing. Not by words did any one tell me." "Not by words?" she asked, eyeing me wonderingly and clearly fearing that I might be playing some trick upon her. "Then can it be that Hezekiah--but no! Hezekiah does n't know!" "Trust Hezekiah for not telling secrets," I answered evasively. "Give me credit for some imagination. The air of Hopefield is stimulating, and in the few days I have spent in your aunt's house I have learned much that I never dreamed of before. I am not at all the person you greeted with so much courtesy in the library when I arrived there, a chimney-doctor and an ignorant person, a few afternoons ago,--called, as I thought, to prescribe for flues that proved to be in admirable condition, but really summoned by higher powers to assist the fates in the proper and orderly performance of their duties to several members of the house of Hollister,--yourself among them." "I don't understand it; you are wholly inexplicable." "I am the simplest and least guileful of beings, I assure you. Yet I have done some things here not in the slightest way related to chimney doctoring; and something else I expect to do for which I believe you will thank me through all the years of your life." "Ah, if you really know, that is possible!" she sighed wearily. "I am very tired of it all. I was very foolish ever to have agreed to Aunt Octavia's plan. You have seen those men,--any one of them might, you know"-- And she shrugged her shoulders impatiently.