educated with other girls and not with young men. She said they were
more ladylike, and a lot more stuff and nonsense, and were more likely
to be fit for society. She said this one would meet a lot of jays, and
very likely fall in love with one; and when we first heard of this
affair of Peggy's I don't believe but what her sister got more
satisfaction out of it than I did. She's quick enough! And a woman
likes to feel that she's a prophetess at any time of her life. That's
about all that seems to keep some of them going when they get old." I
knew that here he had his mother-in-law rather than his daughter in
mind, and I didn't interrupt the sarcastic silence into which he fell.
"You've never met the young man, I believe?" he asked, at quite another
point, and to the negation of my look he added, "To be sure! We've
hardly met him ourselves; he's only been here once; but you'll see
him--you and Mrs. Temple. Well!" He lifted his head, as if he were
going away, but he did not lift his arms from the fence, and so I knew
that he had not emptied the bag of his unexpected confidences; I did
not know why he was making them to me, but I liked him the better for
them, and tried to feel that I was worthy of them. He began with a
laugh, "They both paid it into me so," and now I knew that he meant his
eldest daughter as well as her grandmother, "that my wife turned round
and took my part, and said it was the very best thing that could
happen; and she used all the arguments that I had used with her, when
she had her misgivings about it, and she didn't leave them a word to
say. A curious thing about it was, that though my arguments seemed to
convince them, they didn't convince me. Ever notice, how when another
person repeats what you've said, it sounds kind of weak and foolish?" I
owned that my reasons had at times some such way of turning against me
from the mouths of others, and he went on: "But they seemed to silence
her own misgivings, and she's been enthusiastic for the engagement ever
since. What's the reason," he asked, "why a man, if he's any way