“How is that dear good soul, Mr. Thompson?” asked Mrs. Matson. “I was speaking of him to Captain Phinnikin and Mr. Pink just now, and saying what great respect we all entertained for him.”
“Thank you, my dear madam—papa is quite well,” returned Miss Thompson. “But we must really say good bye, for we expect the Greens to drop into supper presently——”
“Delightful girls, the Miss Greens!” exclaimed Mrs. Matson; “and very well connected, I have heard.”
“Oh! certainly—their uncle is a Member of Parliament,” responded Miss Thompson. “But good bye.”
“Good bye,” repeated her sister; and away they went—happy, joyous, kind-hearted, and good girls, who would not have suffered their tongues to utter a word of scandal,—thus proving a striking contrast with the Matson family.
“What a vulgar buoyancy of spirits the eldest Miss Thompson always has!” exclaimed the senior of the three sisters, after a pause. “I really can scarcely seem commonly polite to her.”
“And the youngest is just like her in that respect,” observed Julia.
“They are the rudest and worst-behaved girls in Dover, except the Miss Greens,” added Mrs. Matson.
“Well,” said Anna-Maria, “since I have heard that the Greens are related to a Member of Parliament, I don’t fancy them to be so vulgar as I used to do. Oh! what a thing it would be to get acquainted with a Member, and have him at our parties next winter! Wouldn’t the Snipsons be in a way?”
“And the Styles’s!” added Julia.