“Ah!” and his exclamation was heavy with meaning.  A girl bound for college became immediately an integer with which a young man who had not yet mislaid his diploma could reckon.  “I have usually been a supporter of Vassar.  It’s the only woman’s college I ever attended.  I went up there once to see a girl I had met at a Prom—­such is the weakness of man!  I had arrayed myself as the lilies of the field, and on my way through Pokip I gathered up a beautiful two-seated trap with a driver, thinking in my ignorance that I should make a big hit by driving the fair one over the hills and far away.  The horses were wonderful; I found out later that they were the finest hearse horses in Poughkeepsie.  She was an awfully funny girl, that girl.  She always used both ‘shall’ and ‘will,’ being afraid to take chances with either verb, an idea I’m often tempted to adopt myself.”

“It’s ingenious, at any rate.  But how did the drive go?”

“Oh, it didn’t!  She said she couldn’t go with me alone unless I was or were her cousin.  It was against the rules.  So we agreed to be cousins and she went off to find the dean or some awful autocrat like that, to spring the delightful surprise, that her long-lost cousin from Kalamazoo had suddenly appeared, and might she go driving with him.  That was her idea, I assure you,—­my own depravity could suggest nothing more euphonious than Canajoharie.  And would you believe it, the consent being forthcoming, she came back and said she wouldn’t go—­absolutely declined!  She rested on the fine point in ethics that, while it was not improper to tell the fib, it would be highly sinful to take advantage of it!  So we strolled over the campus and she showed me the sights, while those funeral beasts champed their bits at so much per hour.  She was a Connecticut girl, and I made a note of the incident as illustrating a curious phase of the New England conscience.”

While they were gayly ringing the changes on these adventures, steps sounded on the veranda.

“That’s Mrs. Owen and my grandfather,” said Sylvia.

“I wonder—­” began Dan, grave at once.

“You’re wondering,” said Sylvia, “whether my grandfather will remember you.”

She recalled very well her grandfather’s unusual seriousness after Harwood’s visit; it seemed wiser not to bring the matter again to his attention.

“I think it would be better if he didn’t,” replied Dan, relieved that she had anticipated his thought.

“I was only a messenger boy anyhow and I didn’t know what my errand was about that day.”

“He doesn’t remember faces well,” said Sylvia, “and wouldn’t be likely to know you.”

As Mrs. Owen asked Dan to her office at once, it was unnecessary for Sylvia to introduce him to her grandfather.

Alone with Mrs. Owen, Dan’s business was quickly transacted.  She produced an abstract of title and bade him read aloud the description of the property conveyed while she held the deed.  At one point she took a pen and crossed a t; otherwise the work of Wright and Fitch was approved.  When she had signed her name, and while Dan was filling in the certificate, she scrutinized him closely.