"Am I to condole with you, then?" asked Harmes.
"No," I answered. "I had the advantage over you of age and experience."
"She is a little devil," said Harmes. "And the devil of it is that if I were to see her to-morrow I believe I should want to make love to her again."
"Harmes!" exclaimed his mother protestingly.
"Oh, I have learned my lesson! I won't make love to her again; but the amazing thing is that after all she has cost me I cannot make up my mind to dislike her as I ought."
"You needn't dislike her," said Ariston, "any more than you need dislike a stone that breaks your leg."
"I cannot but think, however," said Campbell, "that the punishment was out of proportion to the offense."
"No," said Ann, to my great surprise. "You must not say that. No one has suffered more from Harmes' confinement in the colony than I, and yet I am bound to say that violence is to my mind—and to the mind of all of us women—so dangerous a thing that I prefer my son should be an innocent victim than that it should go unpunished."
We had a delicious bottle of California Burgundy with our birds, and I asked whether this was provided by the state.