"But being younger doesn't make people more ladylike of itself."
"I did not know that Mr Rubb was exactly ladylike."
"That's taking me up unfairly; isn't it, aunt? You know what I meant; and only fancy that the man should go out and buy me a work-box. That's more than old Mr Rubb ever did for any of us, since the first day he knew us. And, then, didn't you think that young Mr Rubb is a handsome man, aunt?"
"He's all very well, my dear."
"Oh; I think he is downright handsome; I do, indeed. Miss Dumpus,—that's Mrs Crammer's sister,—told us the other day, that I was wrong to talk about a man being handsome; but that must be nonsense, aunt?"
"I don't see that at all, my dear. If she told you so, you ought to believe that it is not nonsense."
"Come, aunt; you don't mean to tell me that you would believe all that Miss Dumpus says. Miss Dumpus says that girls should never laugh above their breath when they are more than fourteen years old. How can you make a change in your laughing just when you come to be fourteen? And why shouldn't you say a man's handsome, if he is handsome?"
"You'd better go to bed, Susanna."
"That won't make Mr Rubb ugly. I wish you had asked him to come and dine here on Sunday, so that we might have seen whether he eats his gravy with his knife. I looked very hard to see whether he'd catch his crumbs in his handkerchief."
Then Susanna went to her bed, and Miss Mackenzie was left alone to think over the perfections and imperfections of Mr Samuel Rubb, junior.