Miss Margaret was a very pretty girl, a bit spoiled, perhaps, but the idol of her father and the puzzle of her mother, who wished her to be a young lady of society, and was greatly grieved because she preferred doing something by which she could earn her living if necessary.
"Far from saying anything against the character of the Hilltop boys, my dear," said the father, "I must say that I find them a very fine set of young gentlemen. Why, we have not had our lawn tramped over by them, nor our fruit trees pilfered, nor have we suffered from any annoyances which boarding school boys are prone to commit upon neighbors. I am really——-"
"Why, Father, you speak as if the boys were from a primary school, and had not learned the first rules of manners," laughed Margaret gaily. What do you expect, Father dear? That the boys shall be young ruffians?"
"Well, perhaps not that, my dear," replied Van der Donk loftily, "but the city boys who come out here——-"
"The poor fellows never saw a tree before in their lives, and they just wanted to make love to them," interrupted Margaret, again laughing in the gayest fashion. "Could you blame the poor unfortunates for wanting to shin up them and pick peaches and apples and everything else? The only fruit they had ever seen was stale and on city stands, and when they saw the real article it was no wonder that they wanted it. You could not blame them."
Then Miss Margaret admired the boats, and accepted Jack's invitation to take her out on the river, her father and mother accompanying her, of course, and Percival going along to talk to the old folks and give Jack a chance to devote himself to the young lady.
Jack was quite taken with the girl whom he considered very natural and a good deal better company than her father who was forever trying to impress everybody with the renown of the Van der Donks, past and present, and after the company had gone Dick said to him:
"Very pretty girl, Miss Margaret, and has lots of sense, but what a tiresome old bore that father of hers is."
"Yes, indeed," laughed Jack, "but there and many persons who parade their blue blood and fine ancestry before the world just as much as he does. What is he, pork merchant or something like that?"
"Pretty good, Jack," said Percival with a grin. "He was a butcher at one time, but don't mention it if you don't want to earn his everlasting scorn. It is never spoken of. He is one of the wealthiest men along the river, and employs a man to do nothing but cut off his stock coupons. They may invite us to the house, although they are a very exclusive sort and are supposed to associate only with millionaires, and the descendants of the oldest and best families."