“Very well,” was the answer; “unfailing in spirits, every one agreed that he was the youngest man at the wedding.”
“Having outgrown his obnoxious sageness,” said Bessie.
“There is nothing he is so adroit at as guessing the fate of a croquet-ball by its sound.”
“Now Bessie,” exclaimed Alick.
“I have not transgressed, have I?” asked Bessie; and in the exclamations that followed, she said, “You see what want of confidence is. This brother of mine no sooner saw you in the carriage than he laid his commands on me not to ask after your croquet-ground all the way home, and the poor word cannot come out of my mouth without—”
“I only told you not to bore Miss Curtis with the eternal subject, as she would think you had no more brains than one of your mallets,” he said, somewhat energetically.
“And if we had begun to talk croquet, we should soon have driven him outside.”
“But suppose I could not talk it,” said Rachel, “and that we have no ground for it.”
“Why, then,”—and she affected to turn up her eyes,—“I can only aver that the coincidence of sentiments is no doubt the work of destiny.”
“Bessie!” exclaimed her brother.