but as I don't know anything for them, I thought it as well to keep my
lasses apart."

"But I should have supposed it wiser to keep your son apart from them.
I saw him in the thick of those nymphs."

"Well," said the farmer, musingly, and withdrawing his pipe from his
lips, "I don't think lasses not quite well brought up, poor things! do
as much harm to the lads as they can do to proper-behaved lasses;
leastways my wife does not think so. 'Keep good girls from bad
girls,' says she, 'and good girls will never go wrong.' And you will
find there is something in that when you have girls of your own to
take care of."

"Without waiting for that time, which I trust may never occur, I can
recognize the wisdom of your excellent wife's observation. My own
opinion is, that a woman can more easily do mischief to her own sex
than to ours; since, of course, she cannot exist without doing
mischief to somebody or other."

"And good, too," said the jovial farmer, thumping his fist on the
table. "What should we be without women?"

"Very much better, I take it, sir. Adam was as good as gold, and
never had a qualm of conscience or stomach till Eve seduced him into
eating raw apples."

"Young man, thou'st been crossed in love. I see it now. That's why
thou look'st so sorrowful."