"No, indeed. You may will it; but women's wishes, when they go contrary, can make a bad storm in the house, and spoil it as a port of peace. You take my counsel and mate the twain together—the one to Julian and the other to Fox."
"Pshaw!" said the old man turning away from the window. "Because I was godfather to Fox, it does not follow that he wants to be my son."
Then the old man came over to the table that stood near his sister, seated himself, and began to trifle with a snuff-box upon it.
"I shall not part with Bess," he said, "till Tony is matched."
"Then let him be matched with speed," said Magdalen sharply. "How know you but that, if you delay, Julian Crymes may turn her fancy elsewhere. She is a wayward hussy."
"Pshaw! Where is there such a lad as my Tony? He is the chiefest of all the youths about. Not one can compare with him. Are you mad to think of such a thing?"
"There is no reckoning on a maid's eyes; they do not see like ours. Moreover, there is no saying what freak might take your Tony, and he might set his mind on some one else."
"No fear of that," answered the squire roughly. "He knows my will, and that is law to him."
"Indeed! Since when? I thought that the cockerel's whimsies and vagaries set the law to the house; and that you, and Bess, and every one of the family danced to such tune as he whistled."
"I reckon he knows his own interests," said the old man grimly. He was angered by his sister's opposition.