Still looking straight at her he asked a question:
"Tell me one thing, Emmy Lou, jest to satisfy my curiosity and before we go any further with this here bothersome affair that's makin' you unhappy. It seems like to me I heared somewheres that you first met this young man of yours whilst you and little Mildred were off at Knollwood Seminary finishin' your educations. Is that so or ain't it?"
"Yes, sir, that's true," she answered. "You see, when we first went to Knollwood, Harvey had just been sent South to take a place in the office of the trolley road at Knollwood.
"His people were interested in the line; he was assistant to the general manager then. I met him there. And he—he was interested in me, I suppose, and afterward, when he had worked his way up and had been promoted to the superintendency, his company bought our line in, too, and he induced them to transfer him here—I mean to say he was transferred here. So that's how it all happened."
"I see," he said musingly. "You met him down there and he got interested—'interested' was the word you used, wasn't it, honey?—and then after a spell when you had left there he followed you here—or rather it jest so happened by a coincidence that he was sent here. Well, I don't know ez I blame him—for being interested, I mean. It strikes me that in addition to bein' an enterprisin' young man he's also got excellent taste and fine discrimination. He ought to go quite a ways in the world—whut with coincidences favourin' him and everything."
The whimsical note died out of his voice. His tone became serious.
"Child," he said gently, "whut would you say—and whut's even more important, whut would you do—ef I was to tell you that ef it hadn't a-been fur old Aunt Sharley this great thing that's come into your life probably never would have come into it? What ef I was to tell you that if it hadn't a-been fur her you never would have knowed Mr. Harvey Winslow in the first place—and natchelly wouldn't be engaged to marry him now?"
"Why, Judge Priest, how could that be?" Her widened eyes betokened a blank incredulity.
"Emmy Lou," he answered slowly, "in tellin' you whut I'm about to tell you I'm breakin' a solemn pledge, and that's a thing I ain't much given to doin'. But this time I figger the circumstances justify me. Now listen: You remember, don't you, that in the first year or two following after the time your mother left us, the estate was sort of snarled up? Well, it was worse snarled up than you two children had any idea of. Two or three of the heaviest investments your father made in the later years of his life weren't turnin' out very well. The taxes on 'em amounted to mighty nigh ez much ez whut the income frum 'em did. We didn't aim to pester you two girls with all the details, so we sort of kept 'em to ourselves and done the best we could. You lived simple and there was enough to take care of you and to keep up your home, and we knowed we could depend on Aunt Sharley to manage careful. Really, she knowed more about the true condition of things than you did. Still, even so, you no doubt got an inklin' sometimes of how things stood with regards to your finances."
She nodded, saying nothing, and he went on: