"Don't try to fool an old fox, my dear, but come and wash in this water. It isn't because Magnus wants you at the sheep-gathering, but because somebody else is going to take you there."
"Auntie!" cried Thora, lifting a dripping face from the washbasin.
"Oh, you needn't color up like fire, my precious--I know it's the truth without that."
"How absurd you are, Aunt Margret! You know as well as I do that Magnus himself asked Oscar to take me. He wrote expressly from the farm, not having seen Oscar since he came from college, and wanting to kill two birds with one stone."
"The more fool he!" said Aunt Margret. "The man who expects to marry a girl and asks another man to look after her while he is away is a fool, and his friends ought to take care of him. It's only the simpleton who shuts the door with a bang behind him like that."
"What a nonsensical woman you are, auntie!" said Thora. "Oscar is Magnus's brother."
"Brother, indeed! So was Jacob the brother of Esau, and Cain was the brother of Abel, and those ten big beauties were the brothers of Joseph and Benjamin."
"Good gracious me, Aunt Margret, what a bad disposition you've got! That's the worst of you--you have got such a bad disposition. You talk of Oscar Stephenson as if he were a regular reprobate instead of the son of the Governor, and the idol of everybody."
"It's easy to defend some one whom nobody wants to strike. I don't say anything against Oscar."
"Of course, you don't, you cross old creature. You're fonder of him than anybody else, and I believe you want him for yourself, you jealous thing, because you think he is the brightest and cleverest and best-looking young man in Iceland."