“Peter is a character, then?”
“You will find that out before very long, Miss Hawthorne.”
“I do so love characters!”
I ran over my characteristics like a flash, and found them of the baldest and mildest nature. Not a single strong point came to the rescue, not a liking or a disliking. Pah! what a dull, drowsy weed; what a prosy, colorless nobody.
“Peter is a great admirer of the fair sex,” said my mother. “You must see him on Sunday standing at the chapel gate ‘discoorsin’’ the pretty girls as they pass in to last Mass.”
“Is he a bachelor?”
“Oh! yes. I have often asked him why he doesn’t marry, and his invariable reply is, ‘I’d rayther keep looking at them.’”
“Perhaps I might have a chance,” said Miss Hawthorne, with a delicious coquetry in her manner.
“Not a bit of it, my dear; he would not ally himself to a Saxon for a crock of gold.”
“He is a hard-hearted wretch, then,” laughed our guest, “and I shall not endeavor to make a conquest.”