"How could Mr. Patterson know the very text I liked best of all?"
he said to himself. And he pondered over it all that day. In the
evening, after he had tended to his Cochin Chinas and captured the
Guinea hens in the very act of stealing away, and had seen that
the Wanderer and his Wife were under shelter, a light suddenly
broke on him.

"O Almira Jane, I believe it was you who told!" he exclaimed as he
burst into the kitchen; and although she never would admit it, I
think she did.