Hanny flushed rosy red. Oh, why would people talk about being married, and all that? And if Peter wouldn't look at her in just that way! It gave her a touch of embarrassment.
But oh, they had a splendid time! Modern young people would have been bored, and voted it "no spread at all." They played Proverbs, and What is my thought like? and everybody tried to bring out their very best, and be as bright and witty and joyous as possible. They had plain cake and fancy cake, and a new kind of dainty crisp crackers; candies, nuts, raisins, and mottoes, which were the greatest fun of all. Afterward, some dancing with the Cheat quadrille, and it was so amusing to "cut out," or run away and leave your partner with his open arms, and a blank look of surprise on his face.
Doctor Joe came to take the little girl home; for he was quite sure Jim would want to take some one else's sister.
"Aunt Dolly," said Peter, when he was going away without any girl at all, though he had hoped to walk home with Hanny, "isn't Nan Underhill just the sweetest little thing in the world? I don't wonder grandfather liked her so. With that soft, indescribable hair, and her eyes,—twilight eyes, some one put in a poem,—and that cunning dimple when she smiles, and so dainty altogether. What made you say she was not pretty?"
"Why, I said, she was not as handsome as Mrs. Hoffman."
"She suits me ten times better. She is like this,
"'A creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food.'"
Dolly repeated the talk and the verses to Stephen. "And Peter is such a solid, steady-going fellow. He was really smitten."
"The idea! And with that child!"
Dolly laughed gaily. "I suppose when our girls get to be eighteen, you will still think them children. Why, I wasn't quite fifty when you fell in love with me!"