"You were a little different from your usual to-night, Mr Naylor. I never saw you mind young ladies much before. Tonight it has been impossible to get hold of you."
"That may have been the young ladies' fault, my boy. It is not every one of them who knows how to be good company. Naturally, a man at my time of day is less susceptible to the pink and white in a schoolgirl's face than you young fellows are. There is a time for bread and butter, and a time for other things. Solomon says so."
"I don't think any one should call Margaret a bread-and-butter miss," Walter answered, hotly.
"Margaret is a good girl, and smart--though perhaps I should not say so, who remember her a squealing baby--but she would not care to waste her evening in amusing an old uncle, when the fiddlers were around, and so many young fellows to mind her."
"And what about Boston, then? Do you mean to go? Or will you allow Mrs Naylor to take her daughters there, and break up the very pleasant party here?"
"I do not see that Mrs Caleb's going to Boston would break up the party here;" and there was a tone in Joseph's voice, as he said it, which betokened a smile, though there was not light enough to see it. "It is natural that she should want to get her girls away from a too fascinating detrimental.
"You are a sad fellow, Walter--running about the world to frighten fond mothers, and compromise the prospects of young ladies."
"I can afford to marry, Mr Naylor. You know it. You know all about my circumstances and my connections. You have admitted to me that I might fairly enough go in and win if I could."
"I am not the girl's mother, my good fellow. If I recollect aright, I said 'Wait.' That is what I would say to you again, after the lapse of hardly three months. Your patience seems to me of the shortest. You must wait, my boy--wait."
"Wait till another fellow comes forward and unsettles her mind! Stand aside, and let him step in and win her! Would you do that yourself?"