“You met him last night,—young Butler. He dined here, and sat next Alice.”
“You mean that great hulking fellow, with the attempt at a straw-colored moustache, who directed the fireworks.”
“I mean that very good-looking young man who coolly removed the powder-flask that you had incautiously forgotten next the rocket-train,” said Mrs. Trafford.
“And that was Tony!” said he, with a faint sneer.
“Yes, Mark, that was Tony; and if you want to disparage him, let it be to some other than Bella and myself; for he is an old playmate that we both esteem highly, and wish well to.”
“I am not surprised at it,” said he, languidly. “I never saw a snob yet that could n't find a woman to defend him; and this fellow, it would seem, has got two.”
“Tony a snob!”
“Tony Butler a snob! Just the very thing he is not. Poor boy, there never was one to whom the charge was less applicable.”
“Don't be angry, Alice, because I don't admire your rustic friend. In my ignorance I fancied he was a pretentious sort of bumpkin, who talked of things a little out of his reach,—such as yachting,—steeple-chasing, and the like. Is n't he the son of some poor dependant of the governor's?”
“Nothing of the kind; his mother is a widow, with very narrow means, I believe; but his father was a colonel, and a distinguished one. As to dependence, there is no such relation between us.”