“Except people, I know. Why does young mean good with vegetables and everything else, and silly only when it is applied to people?—though it can’t be helped, I know.”
“That is one of your metaphysical questions,” he said, with a slight softening of his tone. “Perhaps because of human jealousy. We all like to discredit what we haven’t got, and most people you see are no longer young.”
“Oh, do you think so, papa? I think there are more young people than old people.”
“I suppose you are right, Fan; but they don’t count for so much, in the way of opinion at least. What has called forth these sage remarks?”
“Only the lettuce,” she said, with a laugh. Then, after a pause, “For instance, there were six or seven children in the party we met to-day, and only two parents.”
“There are seldom more than two parents, my dear.”
She had not looked up when she made this careless little speech, and yet there was a purpose in it, and a good deal of keen observation through her drooped eyelashes. She received his reply with a little laugh. “I did not mean that, papa; but that six or seven are a great deal more than two, which of course you will laugh at me for saying. I suppose they were all English?”
“I suppose so. The father—if he was the father—certainly was English.”
“And you knew him, papa?’
“He knew me, which is a different thing.”