'And who are you thinking of?' I asked, as Tim bent over a box of geranium cuttings. 'I hope she is nice and good, and will be kind to your poor mother, and a good manager?'
'Faith, I wouldn't take one that wasn't that, Miss Ellen,' he replied, without raising his head. 'But it's hard to tell how these young ones'll turn out.'
'She is young then?'
'Young enough, and settled enough,' he responded. 'There's two I'm thinkin' of.'
'Two!' I exclaimed. 'Why, that is not right of you, Tim. You are surely old enough to know the kind of wife would suit you best; and it is unfair to the girls. They are relatives, if I guess right. Those two young women you were walking with on Saturday?'
'Just so,' replied Tim, utterly unabashed: 'Mary Dogherty an' Susie Connor. Mary's the purtiest,' he added in a half soliloquy.
'I have always heard she was as good as she looked,' I said. 'She has been such a dutiful daughter and good sister to those wild boys, she cannot fail to make a good wife.'
'Maybe,' quoth Tim. 'But the Dogherties is down in the world these times.'
'I know they are not very rich; but they are comfortable.'