“Then, why not ask her, and see what she is like? But the truth is, Lizzie, you have taken a prejudice against her?”
“Well, John, I think she is a thoughtless girl, and extravagant; not the sort of girl, in fact, that I should wish to be much with us.”
“Thoughtless and extravagant!” said Mr. Brown, looking grave; “how you women can be so sharp on one another! Her dress seemed to me simple and pretty, and her manners very lady-like and pleasing.”
“You seem to have quite forgotten about Tom's hat,” said Mrs. Brown.
“Tom's white hat—so I had,” said Mr. Brown, and he relapsed into a low laugh at the remembrance of the scene. “I call that his extravagance, and not hers.”
“It was a new hat, and a very expensive one, which he had bought for the vacation, and it is quite spoilt.”
“Well, my dear; really, if Tom will let girls shoot at his hats, he must take the consequences. He must wear it with the holes, or buy another.”
“How can he afford another, John? you know how poor he is.”
Mr. Brown drove on now for several minutes without speaking. He knew perfectly well what his wife was coming to now, and, after weighing in his mind the alternatives of accepting battle or making sail and changing the subject altogether, said,—
“You know, my dear, he has brought it on himself. A headlong, generous sort of youngster, like Tom, must be taught early that he can't have his cake and eat his cake. If he likes to lend his money, he must find out that he hasn't it to spend.”