"I've no doubt she has."
"That's a fine girl, Leah! A smart girl, too." Mr. Ely had not the slightest doubt of her "smartness," not the least. "She'll be a fortune to any man. She's very fond of you."
Mr. Ely was certainly not fond of her, but he could scarcely say so to her father's face. So he kept still.
"Rachel, she miss you too."
Silence. Mr. Ely saw plainly that he was going to be missed by all the six. Since he could not escape from the train while it was travelling at the rate of forty miles an hour, the only course open was to sit still and say as little as he could. He knew his friend too well to suppose that anything he could say would induce him to turn the conversation into other channels. The fond father went blandly on.
"She say you gave her a little gift, eh? That so?"
"Never gave her anything in my life."
"No! She says you gave her a lock of your hair; it was little to you, it was much to her. Rachel, she treasures up these little things. She show it me one day; she says she keep it here."
Mr. Rosenbaum patted his waistcoat in the region where his heart might anatomically be supposed to be.
"I tell you what it is, Rosenbaum, your girls are like their father, smart."