"You can't thank them, either, if they don't enclose their cards. Nearly every day there is a guessing match in the back parlour. It's poor form to send flowers without a card."
"By George, they're fine girls!" reflected Mr. Hamshaw. "Healthy, vigorous, full of life, and not a bit spoiled. Hang it all, I'm an ass to act like this! But I can't help it. A man is never too old to learn or to love. I'll play hob with some of these young dandies before I get through. Hamshaw, you've got to win one of these girls. But which one? There's the rub! It's awfully annoying!"
But it grew to be quite romantic. Mr. Hamshaw came to look upon himself as an up-to-date Romeo. The young ladies did not offer him any inducement to call upon them in their own home, but they frequently walked with him in the park of afternoons, and were astonishingly agreeable about candy, soda-water and matinees. Their reluctance to lunch or dine with him downtown stamped them in his mind as something most admirable. He quite understood. And their devotion to their sick friend was truly beautiful. He never saw them but they were going to visit her. Miss Louise naively informed him that they gave her some of the violets he sent to them, but that she knew he wouldn't mind.
"Do you think she'd like it if I sent her some good books to read?" asked he, quite delighted.
"Sure," replied Miss Marie.
"How very unconventional," beamed Mr. Hamshaw to himself. "Hang it all, I wish I could decide between them! I think I'd look better with the short one, but—"
One day his nephew, young Jimmy Sprang, met him on the street and proceeded to twit him about his second childhood.
"What do you mean, sir?" demanded Mr. Hamshaw with great dignity and a sinking heart.
"Who are the fairies you're trotting—"
"Stop, sir!" thundered Mr. Hamshaw. "Not another word, sir! They are ladies, and not to be discussed by such a bounder as you."