"Nothing beyond his indubitable eligibility."
"Then let me tell you what I suspect. Both his names contain seven letters. My sister is slightly cracked as to the number seven. I swear to you my belief that the fact that his names contain seven letters each is at the bottom of all this. Incredible, my dear sir, but wholly possible!"
"Then, such being the case, why does n't she show her hand openly? If she believes that Wiggins with his septenary names is ordained by the seven original pleiades to marry your daughter Cecilia, I should think that by the same token she would have sought a man rejoicing in the noble name of Septimus. You send conjecture far when once you entertain so absurd an idea."
"You think my assumption unlikely?" he asked eagerly.
"I certainly do, Mr. Hollister. But I confess that I had never counted the letters in Wiggins's name before, and your suggestion is interesting. And this whole idea of the potential seven in our affairs has possibilities. If seven at all, why is n't it possible that your sister has Jacob in mind and the seven years he served for Rachel? You may as well assume that, as Wiggins is specially favored in the number of letters in his singularly prosaic and unromantic name, it is Miss Hollister's plan to keep him dallying seven years."
He seized me by the arm and forced me back against the battlements, then stood off and eyed me fiercely.
"You speak of serving and of service! Will you tell me just why you are here and what brings you into this affair! My daughter Hezekiah is the frankest person alive, and she told me of her meetings with you and that you had been to the Asolando,--where she spent a day in the sheerest spirit of mischief. That was the beginning of all our troubles, that damned hole with its insane confectionery and poetry. If Cecilia, in a misguided notion of earning her own living, had not gone there and worn an apron for a week before I dragged her out, she would never have met Wiggins. And now will you kindly tell me just what you are doing in my sister's house, where I have to come like a thief in the night to see one of my own children?"
This fierce deliverance touched me nearly: I doubted my ability to explain to one of these amazing Hollisters just how I came to be sojourning in the house of another of the family without any business that would bear scrutiny. I hastened to declare my profession, and that I had been summoned by Miss Hollister to examine her chimneys. I could not, however, tell him that until my arrival the chimneys had behaved themselves admirably!