"Run away! Where from?"

"Run away from home—now didn't you?"

"Mercy, no! What put such an idea as that in your head?" I asked, laughing.

"Fanny Harley did."

"Who's Fanny Harley?"

"She's the girl they took to the crazy-house."

"But," I argued, "is that any reason for you to suppose that I ran away from home too?"

"Yep, it is. You're ever so much like Fanny Harley. You talk just alike, and you've got just the same notions she had, from what I can make; and she did run away from home. She told me so. She lived up-state somewhere, and was off a farm just like you; and—"

"But I'm not a farmer, and never was," I put in.