"There's something in what you say," I assented.

"Of course there is," my neighbor insisted. "I couldn't help laughing,
though," and he laughed, as if to show how helpless he had been, "at
what my wife said. She said she guessed if it came to that they would
get to know more of each other's looks than they did of their minds.
She had me there, but I don't think my girl has made out so very poorly
even as far as books are concerned."

Upon this invitation to praise her, I ventured to say, "A young lady of
Miss Talbert's looks doesn't need much help from books."

I could see that what I had said pleased him to the core, though he put
on a frown of disclaimer in replying, "I don't know about her looks.
She's a GOOD girl, though, and that's the main thing, I guess."

"For her father, yes, but other people don't mind her being pretty," I
persisted. "My wife says when Miss Talbert comes out into the garden,
the other flowers have no chance."

"Good for Mrs. Temple!" my neighbor shouted, joyously giving himself
away.

I have always noticed that when you praise a girl's beauty to her
father, though he makes a point of turning it off in the direction of
her goodness, he likes so well to believe she is pretty that he cannot
hold out against any persistence in the admirer of her beauty. My
neighbor now said with the effect of tasting a peculiar sweetness in my
words, "I guess I shall have to tell my wife, that." Then he added,
with a rush of hospitality, "Won't you come in and tell her yourself?"