Then something unexpected happened.
"I don't know whether old Swaffer ever under-stood how much he was regarded in the light of a father by his foreign retainer. Anyway the rela-tion was curiously feudal. So when Yanko asked formally for an interview--'and the Miss too' (he called the severe, deaf Miss Swaffer simply Miss)--it was to obtain their permission to marry.
Swaffer heard him unmoved, dismissed him by a nod, and then shouted the intelligence into Miss Swaffer's best ear. She showed no surprise, and only remarked grimly, in a veiled blank voice, 'He certainly won't get any other girl to marry him.'
"It is Miss Swaffer who has all the credit of the munificence: but in a very few days it came out that Mr. Swaffer had presented Yanko with a cot-tage (the cottage you've seen this morning) and something like an acre of ground--had made it over to him in absolute property. Willcox expe-dited the deed, and I remember him telling me he had a great pleasure in making it ready. It re-cited: 'In consideration of saving the life of my beloved grandchild, Bertha Willcox.'