"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."