“Poor thing,” said she, “she doesn’t do any harm.  There’s a thick towel over the pan, and I should be ashamed of my yeast if it couldn’t lift a cat.”

When Miss Panney went upstairs she laughed.  She did not want to laugh, but she could not help it.  She had scarcely driven out of the gate when she met Dr. Tolbridge.

“A pretty trick you have played me!” he cried.

“Yes, indeed, a very pretty one,” replied the old lady, pulling up her mare.  “I thought you knew me better than to think that I would come here to look into this engagement business with you or anybody else.  Or that I would let you get ahead of me, either.  Well, I have got all the points I want, and more too, and now you can go along, and Mr. Ralph will tell you that he is the happiest man in the world, and your secretary will tell you that she is the happiest young woman, and the cook you are going to lose will vow that she is the happiest old woman, and if you stay until Mrs. Drane and Miriam come back, the one will tell you that she is the happiest middle-aged woman, and the other that she is the happiest girl, and if you give Mike a half dollar, he will tell you that he is the happiest negro in the world.  Click!”

The doctor went on to Cobhurst, where Mrs. Drane and Miriam soon arrived, and he heard everything that Miss Panney told him he would hear.

CHAPTER XLIII

THE SIREN AND THE IRON

The summer, the Dranes, La Fleur, and Miriam had all left Cobhurst.  The summer had gone south for an eight months’ stay; the Dranes had gone to their old Pennsylvania home to settle up their affairs, and prepare for the marriage of the younger lady, which was to take place early in the coming spring; La Fleur had returned to the Tolbridges’ to remain until the new Cobhurst household should be organized; and Miriam, whose association with Dora and Cicely had aroused her somewhat dormant aspirations in an educational direction, had gone to Mrs. Stone’s school for the winter term.

November had come to Cobhurst, and there Ralph remained to get his farm ready for the winter, and his house in order for the bride who would come with the first young leaves.  He did not regret this period of solitary bachelorhood, for not having very much money, he required a good deal of time to do what was to be done.

He had planned a good deal of refitting for the house, although not so much as to deprive it of any of those characteristics which made it dear old Cobhurst.  And there were endless things to do on the farm, the most important of which, in his eyes, was the breaking of the pair of colts, which task he intended to take into his own hands.  Mrs. Browning and the gig were very well in their places, but something more would be needed when the green leaves came.

Seraphina, Mike’s sister, now ruled in the kitchen, but Ralph’s thoughts had acquired such a habit of leaving the subject on which he was engaged and flying southward, that even when he took a meal with the Tolbridges, which happened not infrequently, he scarcely noticed the difference between their table and his own.  Nothing stronger than this could be said regarding his present power of abstracting his mind from surrounding circumstances.