"Oh! He does, eh? And now, Jacob, what the mischief is that to you? And what has it to do with his putting the ten-acre lot in corn on shares?"
"I've seen her crying."
"Bah! Girls are always crying. They like it. They do it for practice."
"Peter, you'd kick a boy for throwing stones at a wild bird, wouldn't you?"
"That's another matter. Birds are birds, and they're God's creatures; but women are the devil's creatures, and you'll never see Peter Van Deust trouble himself to lift his foot to a boy that throws stones at them. If the girl don't like the treatment her uncle gives her, I suppose she can find some fellow fool enough to marry her. 'Most any of 'em can do that."
"Peter, you shouldn't talk that way. A poor girl has her feelings about marrying where her liking goes, just as much as a man has."
"Yah!" snarled Peter, contemptuously, vigorously puffing his pipe, and for some minutes both men were silent. The younger of the two sank into a reverie, and awoke from it with a start, when his brother resumed the conversation, saying:
"I tell you what it is, Jacob. You were spooney on Mary Wallace's mother forty years ago, and I'm blessed if I think you have got over it yet. She threw you overboard then, not for a better looking man—for you were a fine, trim, sailor-built young fellow in those days—but for a richer one. She thought—"
"No, no, Peter! No, no! Don't say that! Don't say that! She didn't want to marry Wallace. I know she didn't. But her father and mother compelled her to it. She loved me best, I know she did. But you are right in saying I haven't got over it, Peter. I never shall. I'll love her just the same still, if I meet her in heaven. And when I see Mary's sweet young face, the love that is in my heart for her mother's memory cries out like a voice from the grave of all my hopes and joys, and I can hardly keep from taking poor Lottie's child in my arms and weeping over her."
"Which, if you were to do, she would think you were crazy, and right she would be," commented Peter, snarlingly.