or gesture. In this way she began for the first time
to form ideas which she had not derived from her family,
and they were none the less her own because they were
often mistaken.

Some of the things that he partly said, partly looked,
she reported to her mother, and they talked them over,
as they did everything relating to these new acquaintances,
and wrought them into the novel point of view which
they were acquiring. When Mrs. Lapham returned home,
she submitted all the accumulated facts of the case,
and all her own conjectures, to her husband, and canvassed
them anew.

At first he was disposed to regard the whole affair as of
small importance, and she had to insist a little beyond
her own convictions in order to counteract his indifference.

"Well, I can tell you," she said, "that if you
think they were not the nicest people you ever saw,
you're mightily mistaken. They had about the best manners;
and they had been everywhere, and knew everything. I declare
it made me feel as if we had always lived in the backwoods.
I don't know but the mother and the daughters would have let
you feel so a little, if they'd showed out all they thought;
but they never did; and the son--well, I can't express it,
Silas! But that young man had about perfect ways."

"Seem struck up on Irene?" asked the Colonel.