"H'm! Well, I think you should talk to him about taking life more seriously. He ought not to idle away his youth as he's doing."
"We can't complain that he's idled much of it away here hitherto."
"Why doesn't he prepare himself for some profession?"
"He's done a good deal of preparing. He tells me he's going into politics."
"Humph! politics. When?"
"Well, I dare say when he goes East again."
"I don't approve of idle men."
"No," said John Gano, with some asperity, "I know you don't."
Body-servants and "splendor" were all very well, but it was not pleasing to Mrs. Gano that her only grandson should be regarded even temporarily in the light of that character, looked at askance even in the old unenterprising South, "the gentleman of leisure." In her heart she thought it undignified that Ethan should spend so many mornings playing tennis; that he should laugh and sing with Julia Otway (another victim, plainly) as though amusement were the end of existence. Harry Wilbur, too, who had begun with a good honest detestation of the visitor at the Fort, was at the end of three weeks one of his most ardent friends.
"The Wilburs want cousin Ethan to go and dine with them on Sunday," Emmie reported. "They simply love him. I don't wonder. He's going to get Harry Wilbur something to do in Boston."