"I don't expect _my_ wishes to be considered in anything."

"Oh, come, now, ma; that isn't fair. Except that I married to suit myself,
which is about the only foolish thing that I have done, I have been
tolerably obedient, I think," said Mr. Ketchum, aware that he was on
dangerous ground.

"Do tell us about it. You wanted him to marry some one else,--some one
with a fortune, didn't you?" said Mrs. Sykes. "Quite natural, I am sure."

"She wanted me to marry the ugliest woman east of the Rockies," said Mr.
Ketchum. "But I couldn't stand that face behind my cups and saucers three
hundred and sixty-five days in the year, and I bolted to England, where my
wife picked me up."

"She wasn't so ugly at all, Job, except that her nose was a little
aquiline," protested Mrs. Ketchum.

"Aquiline as a camel's back," asserted her son, in an aside.

"And her hair _was_ rather auburn," Mrs. Ketchum went on, in reluctant
concession.

"Call it pink, as the English do their hunting-coats," suggested he,
smiling.

"But such a dear, _good_ girl, you quite forgot that she wasn't exactly
handsome" ("No, not precisely," interjected he) "when you came to know
her."