"Fact is, Mr. Fair, I don't care for young ladies' company. Half of them are frauds and the rest are a delusion and a snare—ha-ha-ha! Miss Garnet is new goods, as the boys say, and I'm not fashionable. Even our mothers ain't very well acquainted yet; though my mother's always regretted it; their tastes differ. My mother's literary, you know."
"They say Miss Garnet's a great romp—among other girls—and an unmerciful mimic."
"Don't you rather like that?"
"Who, me? Lord, yes! The finest girl I know is that way—dances Spanish dances—alone with other girls, of course. The church folks raised Cain about it once. O I—you think I mean Miss Halliday—well I do. Miss Garnet can tease me about her all she likes—ha, ha! it doesn't faze me! Miss Fannie's nothing to me but a dear friend—never was! Why, she's older than I am—h-though h-you'd never suspect it."
"Well, yes, I think I should have known it."
"O go 'long! Somebody told you! But I swear, Mr. Fair, I wonder, sir, you're not more struck with Miss Halliday. Now, I go in for mind and heart. I don't give a continental for externals; and yet—did you ever see such glorious eyes as Fan—Miss Halliday's? Now, honest Ingin! did you, ever?"
Mr. Fair admitted that Miss Halliday's eyes danced.
"You say they do? You're right! Hah! they dance Spanish dances. I've seen black eyes that went through you like a sword; I've seen blue eyes that drilled through you like an auger; and I've seen gray ones that bit through you like a cold-chisel; and I've seen—now, there's Miss Garnet's, that just see through you without going through you at all—O I don't like any of 'em! but Fannie Halliday's eyes—Miss Fannie, I should say—they seem to say, 'Come out o' that. I'm not looking at all, but I know you're there!' O sir!—Mr. Fair, don't you hate, sir, to see such a creature as that get married to anybody? I say, to anybody! I tell you what it's like, Mr. Fair. It's like chloroforming a butterfly, sir! That's what it's like!"
He meditated and presently resumed—"But, Law' no! She's nothing to me. I've got too much to think of with these lands on my hands. D'you know, sir, I really speak more freely to you than if you belonged here and knew me better? And I confess to you that a girl like F—Miss Halliday—would be enough to keep me from ever marrying!"
"Why, how is that?"