AN INTERVIEWER

The roan mare travelled well that morning, and Miss Panney was at Cobhurst before the doctor reached his patient’s house.  To her regret she found that Mrs. Drane and Miriam had driven to Thorbury.  Miss Drane was upstairs at her work, and Mr. Haverley was somewhere on the place, but could easily be found.  All this she learned from Mike, whom she saw outside.

“And where is the cook?”

“She’s in the kitchen,” said Mike.

“A good place for her,” replied the old lady; “let her stay there.  I will see Mr. Haverley, and I will see him out here.  Go and find him and tell him I am sitting under that tree.”

Ralph arrived, bright-eyed.

“Well, sir,” cried the old lady, “and so you have decided to take a wife to yourself, eh?”

“Indeed I have,” said he, with the air of one who had conquered a continent, and giving Miss Panney’s outstretched hand a hearty shake.

“Sit down here,” said she, “and tell me all about it.  I suppose your soul is hungering for congratulations.”

“Oh yes,” he said, laughing; “they are the collateral delights which are next best to the main happiness.”

“Now,” said Miss Panney, “I suppose you feel quite certain that Miss Drane is a young woman who will suit your temperament and your general intellectual needs?”

“Indeed I do,” cried Ralph.  “She suits me in every possible way.”

“And you have thoroughly investigated her character, and know that she has the well-balanced mind which will be very much wanted here, and that she has cut off and swept away all remnants of former attachments to other young men?”

Ralph twisted himself around impatiently.

“One moment,” said Miss Panney, raising her hand.  “And you are quite positive that she would have been willing to marry you if you had not owned this big farm; and that if you had had a dozen other girls to choose from, you still would have chosen her; and that you really think such a small person will appear well by the side of a tall fellow like you; and you are entirely convinced that you will never look around on other men’s wives and wish that your wife was more like this one or that one; and that—­”

“Miss Panney!” cried Ralph, “do you suppose there was ever a man in the world who thought about all those things when he really loved a woman?”

“No,” said she, “I do not suppose there ever was one, and it was in the hope that such a one had at last appeared on earth that I put my questions to you.”

“Well, I can answer them all in a bunch,” said he; “she is exactly the wife I want, and nobody in the world would suit me as well.  And if there is any one who does not think so—­”

“Stop!” exclaimed Miss Panney; “your face is getting red.  Never jump over a wall when there is a bottomless ditch on the other side.  You might miss the ditch, but it is not likely.  You are in love, and when people are that way, the straight back of a saw is parallel to every line of its teeth.  Don’t quarrel, and I will go on with my congratulations.”