Warren caught his breath, as if he had stuck a splinter into his finger, and his face pinched up with sharp anxiety. "I have been expecting to hear that," he said, smoothing out the papers on the table. "I have been looking for it, and I don't blame you in the least, though I hate to give you up. But," he added, brightening, "you have given me a start and they can't take it away from me. I'm all right and I know you are. And the first thing you know, I'm going to get married and settle down. I am about half way in love with a girl now. She put her hand on a high seat and jumped right up into a wagon. And when she batted her eyes, I wondered that they didn't crack like a whip, they were so sharp. I said to myself right then that I was about half way in love with her, and I watched her as she sat there, eating an apple; and when she drove away I went and got an apple and ate it, and I never tasted an apple before, I tell you. It must be a great girl that can give flavor to fruit."
"Who is she?" Lyman asked, his eyes brightening with amusement.
"I don't know her name. She drove in with her father—I reckon he was her father—and I didn't find out her name or anything about her. I went into the store where the man bought a jug of molasses and asked the clerk in there if he knew the man, and he said he didn't. But I'll find out and will marry her if she has no particular objections. A woman who can jump like that and then flavor an apple can catch me any day."
"You don't know but that she may be already married," said Lyman.
"Oh, no. We must not suppose that. Why, that would kill everything. Of course the fellow with her might be her husband, but it would be nonsense to presume so when, with the same degree of reason, I can presume he is not. If you've got to do any presuming, always presume for the best."
Lyman threw himself back and laughed. "Neither the ancients nor the moderns ever evolved from life any better philosophy than that," he declared. "Why, of course she is not married, nor shall she be until you marry her. It was intended that she should flavor your life, even as she flavored the apple. Here comes someone. Why, it's McElwin. Step out into the other room a moment, please. I believe he wants to see me alone."