After our return home from Kilkhaven, my father and mother had a good many
talks about me and Percivale, and sometimes they took different sides. I
will give a shadow of one of these conversations. I think ladies can write
fully as natural talk as gentlemen can, though the bits between mayn't be
so good.

_Mother._--I am afraid, my dear husband [This was my mother's most solemn
mode of addressing my father], "they are too like each other to make a
suitable match."

_Father_.--I am sorry to learn you consider me so very unlike yourself,
Ethelwyn. I had hoped there was a very strong resemblance indeed, and that
the match had not proved altogether unsuitable.

_Mother._--Just think, though, what would have become of me by this time,
if you had been half as unbelieving a creature as I was. Indeed, I fear
sometimes I am not much better now.

_Father._--I think I am, then; and I know you've done me nothing but good
with your unbelief. It was just because I was of the same sort precisely
that I was able to understand and help you. My circumstances and education
and superior years--

_Mother._--Now, don't plume yourself on that, Harry; for you know everybody
says you look much the younger of the two.

_Father._--I had no idea that everybody was so rude. I repeat, that my more
years, as well as my severer education, had, no doubt, helped me a little
further on before I came to know you; but it was only in virtue of the