He unpinned the huge cluster of violets on his coat and laid them down on the sill beside her before he went . 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 had n'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 would n'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 did n'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 XXXXX three days .
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