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 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 -- did n't know -- had been busy . Nan cut short his halting excuses by demanding to know if he were really going away , and what he intended to do . `` I 'll go out on the prairies and take up a claim , '' said Osborne sturdily .
`` Begin life XXXXX again free of debt .
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