“Doubtless,” her son replied, grimly; then he sighed. “But our duty remains the same. I wish she had been content to marry Frank Hinton, whom I believe to be a manly young fellow. I saw him once on a trip with his father, and it was some such idea that made me offer his father the means to educate the boy for a profession.”
“Norman, to think of your turning match-maker!” his mother exclaimed, in amused surprise.
He flushed, then laughed.
“It seems ridiculous, I know, mother,” he owned. “But the child’s future was on my mind, and it seemed natural that, growing up in the house with those young men, she might grow to fancy one of them.”
“As a brother, yes, but not as a husband. Girls are much more likely to fancy strangers as lovers. They are capricious,” Mrs. de Vere said; and she quoted Longfellow to her son:
“‘Thus it is our daughters leave us,
Those we love and those who love us!
Just when they have learned to help us,
When we are old and lean upon them,
Comes a youth with flaunting feathers;