ent. Nan
flicked them off with her fingers as she watched him cross the lawn,
his own self-satisfied smile upon his face.

* * * * *

A week later the Osborne homestead had passed into Bryan Lee's hands
and John Osborne was staying with his cousin at Thornhope, pending his
departure for the west. He had never been to see Nan since that last
afternoon, but Bryan Lee haunted the Stewart place. One day he
suddenly stopped coming and, although Nan was discreetly silent, in
due time it came to old Abe's ears by various driblets of gossip that
Nan had refused him.

Old Abe marched straightway home to Nan in a fury and demanded if this
were true. Nan curtly admitted that it was. Old Abe was so much taken
aback by her coolness that he asked almost meekly what was her reason
for doing such a fool trick.

"Because he turned John Osborne out of house and home," returned Nan
composedly. "If he hadn't done that there is no telling what might
have happened. I might even have married him, because I liked him very
well and it would have pleased you. At any rate, I wouldn't have
married John when you were against him. Now I mean to."

Old Abe stormed furiously at this, but Nan kept so provokingly cool
that he was conscious of wasting breath. He went off in a rage, but
Nan did not feel particularly anxious now that the announcement was
over. He would cool down, she knew. John Osborne worried her more. She
didn't see clearly how she was to marry him unless he asked her, and
he had studiously avoided her since the foreclosure.

But Nan did not mean to be baffled or to let her lover slip through
her fingers for want of a little courage. She was not old Abe
Stewart's daughter for nothing.

One day Ned Bennett dropped in and said that John Osborne would start
for the west in three days. That evening Nan went up to her room and
dressed herself in the prettiest dress she owned, combed her hair
around her sparkling face in bewitching curls, pinned a cluster of
apple blossoms at her belt, and, thus equipped, marched down in the
golden sunset light to the Mill Creek Bridge. John Osborne, on his
return from Thornhope half an hour later, found her there, leaning
over the rail among the willows.

Nan started in well-assumed surprise and then asked him why he had not
been to see her. John blushed--stammered--didn't know--had been busy.
Nan cut short his halting excuses by demanding to know if he were
really go