"Then she lay back in her chair, kind o' weary, an' Sam asked me how was business—just to fill in the gap, I guess. Liz woke up an' showed how far she'd got ahead in the race.
"'Business!' says she, with animation. 'That's why I haven't any patience with American men. They never sit down for ten minutes without talking business. Their souls are steeped in commercialism. Don't you see how absurd it is, father? There are plenty of lovely things to talk about.'
"Sam looked guilty, an' I felt sorry for him. It had cost heavy to educate his girl up to a p'int where she could give him so much advice an' information. The result was natural. She was irritated by the large cubic capacity—the length, breadth, and thickness of his ignorance and unrefinement; he was dazed by the length, breadth, an' thickness of her learning an' her charm. He didn't say a word. He bowed his head before this pretty, perfumed casket of erudition.
"'You like Europe,' I says.
"'I love it,' says she, 'It's the only place to live. There one finds so much of the beautiful in art and music and so many cultivated people.'
"Lizzie was a handsome girl, an' had more sense than any o' the others that tried to keep up with her. After all, she was Sam's fault, an' Sam was a sin conceived an' committed by his wife, as ye might say. She had made him what he was.
"'Have you seen Dan Pettigrew lately?' Lizzie asked.
"'Yes.' I says. 'Dan is goin' to be a farmer.'
"'A farmer!" says she, an' covered her face with her handkerchief an' shook with merriment.
"'Yes,' I says. 'Dan has come down out o' the air. He's abandoned folly. He wants to do something to help along.'