"Out o' what?" Tobias asked, taking the pipe from his mouth and staring. "Looks to me as though she was well supplied with most everything a young gal ought to have, an' wasn't out o' nothing."
"I mean she has been in society two years."
"Oh, sugar! That's a case, is it, of when you're out, you're in?" chuckled the lightkeeper. "I give it as my opinion that the only thing Lorny lacks is a good husband."
Miss Ida flushed softly. "I hope she will see the advisability of choosing wisely in that matter," the aunt said, speaking intimately to these two old friends, at the expression of whose interest in her family affairs she was far too sensible to take offence.
"Yes," she pursued. "You know what hopes her father and I have for her. An eminently fitting alliance. And Ralph is a manly fellow. It does seem as though those two were quite made for each other."
"Humph! Yes. 'Twould seem so," muttered Tobias. "But it does appear sometimes as though the very things that ought to be don't somehow come around to happen."
"You are a philosopher, Tobias."
"Dunno as that's a compliment, Miss Ida," rejoined the lightkeeper, his eyes twinkling. "I got all my wits about me yet, and most of them philosophers you hear tell about ain't. They get on some hobby and ride it to death. And a man ain't really broad-minded unless he can see both sides to a question.
"Now, takin' the chances for and against your Lorna and Ralph Endicott marryin'. What would you say, Miss Ida, was the one best bet?"
He looked up at her shrewdly, holding his pipe with that familiar gesture of his. Miss Ida's gravity grew more profound.