"Indeed she is; and I am delighted to see it. I do not know why my grandmother may not live these twenty years; for even that would not make her near as old as Sus, who, I have often heard her say, was a middle-aged man when she was born."
"True; she seems like an elder sister to me, rather than as a mother; and is altogether a most delightful old woman. But, if we had so charming an old woman to receive us, so are there also some very charming young women—hey, Hugh?"
"I am quite of your way of thinking, sir; and must say I have not, in many a day, seen two as charming creatures as I have met with here."
"Two!—umph; a body would think one might suffice. Pray, which may be the two, Master Padishah?"
"Patt and Mary Warren, of course. The other two are well enough, but these two are excellent."
My uncle Ro looked grum, but he said nothing for some time. Eating is always an excuse for a broken conversation, and he ate away as if resolute not to betray his disappointment. But it is a hard matter for a gentleman to do nothing but eat at table, and so he was obliged to talk.
"Everything looks well here, after all, Hugh," observed my uncle. "These anti-renters may have done an infinite deal of harm in the way of abusing principles, but they do not seem to have yet destroyed any material things."
"It is not their cue, sir. The crops are their own; and as they hope to own the farms, it would be scarcely wise to injure what, no doubt, they begin to look on as their own property, too. As for the Nest house, grounds, farm, etc., I dare say they will be very willing to leave me them for a while longer, provided they can get everything else away from me."
"For a time longer, at least; though that is the folly of those who expect to get along by concessions; as if men were ever satisfied with the yielding of a part, when they ask that which is wrong in itself, without sooner or later expecting to get the whole. As well might one expect the pickpocket who had abstracted a dollar to put back two-and-sixpence change. But things really look well around the place."
"So much the better for us. Though, to my judgment and taste, Miss Mary Warren looks better than anything else I have yet seen in America."