"How do you know I am not sentimental, Rose?"
"Because I heard a lady say you were not."
"Voilà, qui devient intéressant!" exclaimed Mr. Yorke, hitching his chair nearer the fire. "A lady! That has quite a romantic twang. We must guess who it is.—Rosy, whisper the name low to your father. Don't let him hear."
"Rose, don't be too forward to talk," here interrupted Mrs. Yorke, in her usual kill-joy fashion, "nor Jessy either. It becomes all children, especially girls, to be silent in the presence of their elders."
"Why have we tongues, then?" asked Jessy pertly; while Rose only looked at her mother with an expression that seemed to say she should take that maxim in and think it over at her leisure. After two minutes' grave deliberation, she asked, "And why especially girls, mother?"
"Firstly, because I say so; and secondly, because discretion and reserve are a girl's best wisdom."
"My dear madam," observed Moore, "what you say is excellent—it reminds me, indeed, of my dear sister's observations; but really it is not applicable to these little ones. Let Rose and Jessy talk to me freely, or my chief pleasure in coming here is gone. I like their prattle; it does me good."
"Does it not?" asked Jessy. "More good than if the rough lads came round you.—You call them rough, mother, yourself."
"Yes, mignonne, a thousand times more good. I have rough lads enough about me all day long, poulet."
"There are plenty of people," continued she, "who take notice of the boys. All my uncles and aunts seem to think their nephews better than their nieces, and when gentlemen come here to dine, it is always Matthew, and Mark, and Martin that are talked to, and never Rose and me. Mr. Moore is our friend, and we'll keep him.—But mind, Rose, he's not so much your friend as he is mine. He is my particular acquaintance; remember that!" And she held up her small hand with an admonitory gesture.