"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 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, &c., 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."
Another "umph" expressed my uncle's dissatisfaction—displeasure would be too strong a word—and he continued eating.
"You have really some good Rhenish in your cellar, Hugh," resumed uncle Ro, after tossing off one of the knowing green glasses full—though I never could understand why any man should wish to drink his wine out of green, when he might do it out of crystal. "It must have been a purchase of mine, made when we were last in Germany, and for the use of my mother."
"As you please, sir; it neither adds nor subtracts from the beauty of Martha and her friend."
"Since you are disposed to make these boyish allusions, be frank with me, and say, at once, how you like my wards."