"My dear, you didn't think you were to bring New York along with you when you came here," replied her husband.
"I wish I was going back to-morrow."
"That's a foolish thing to say. People here are very kind, and you are seeing a great deal more of the world than you would ever see at home. I am having a very good time. What do you say, Bell?"
"I wish I could have kept my stockings clean."
"But what about the young men?"
"Young men are pretty much the same everywhere, I guess. They never have their wits about them. They never mean what they say, because they don't understand the use of words. They are generally half impudent and half timid. When in love they do not at all understand what has befallen them. What they want they try to compass as a cow does when it stands stretching out its head towards a stack of hay which it cannot reach. Indeed there is no such thing as a young man, for a man is not really a man till he is middle-aged. But take them at their worst they are a deal too good for us, for they become men some day, whereas we must only be women to the end."
"My word, Bella!" exclaimed the mother.
"You have managed to be tolerably heavy upon God's creatures, taking them in a lump," said the father. "Boys, girls, and cows! Something has gone wrong with you besides the rain."
"Nothing on earth, sir,—except the boredom."
"Some young man has been talking to you, Bella."