"But you ought to be afflicted."
"Why?"
"Didn't you vote for Wilson?"
Jonstone nodded solemnly.
"Come, then," said Meredith, as if he were pardoning an erring child; "there's just time for one julep and to pack up our things. You'll just love New York. And when we get there we'll make up our minds whether we'll go to Newport or Bar Harbor. Bob, did it ever occur to you that you and I ought to get married? That looks as if it was going to be better than the other, though darker— What's the use of having ancestors if you're not going to be one?"
"Show me a girl as handsome as Sully's portrait of Great-grandmother Pringle, and I'll take notice."
"Why, every other girl in a Broadway chorus has got the old lady skinned to death, Bob!"
"You may be worldly-wiser than me, Mel, but you've lost your reverence. It's always been agreed in the family that Great-grandmother Pringle was the most beautiful woman in the South. And when a man says 'the South,' and refers at the same time to female charms, he has as good as said the whole world."
"Bob, among ourselves, do you really think Jefferson Davis was a greater man than Abraham Lincoln?"
"Ssssh!" said Jonstone.