"Well said, Miss, well said!" cried Miss Proudfoot, who was a very good hand at whist and very quarrelsome over the game.
"I don't believe myself," said Miss Acton, "that trousers ever will come in. Men whose calves are of a good shape and who have long been in the habit of admiring and cherishing them, will be very reluctant to conceal them in those ridiculous unmanly garments called trousers."
"As the majority of men strut this petty earth on drum-sticks," said General Groves. "I expect that in a few years hence the universal male wear will be trousers."
He looked at his own legs. Time had somewhat shrunk them.
"Mr Lawrence has wonderfully improved of late," said Miss Proudfoot, with a glance at Lucy. "I should say that when in the Navy he was one of the handsomest men in that glorious Service."
"All praise of him is gratifying to me for his father's sake," said Captain Acton, whilst Lucy sat in silence with the shadow of a smile lurking about her mouth, but invisible in her soft, dreamy half-veiled eyes.
"Would not you like to take a trip to the West Indies in your father's ship, Miss?" said the Reverend James Prettyman, who had been headmaster at a fashionable school for young gentlemen for many years past in a city about twenty miles distant from Old Harbour Town.
"Only the other day," replied Lucy, "I told Mr Eagle, the mate of the vessel, that I could not imagine a pleasanter trip than a voyage to the West Indies in the Minorca, but I stipulated that the sea should be always smooth."
"There it is!" said Miss Acton. "Give me a sea as smooth as our lawn, and I will accompany you, my dear."