“Yes,” said Bartley.
“Well,” returned the landlady, “I always have preferred single gentlemen.”
“I inferred as much from a remark which you made in your front window,” said Bartley, indicating the placard.
The landlady smiled. They were certainly a very pretty-appearing young couple, and the gentleman was evidently up-and-coming. Mrs. Nash liked Bartley, as most people of her grade did, at once. “It's always be'n my exper'ence,” she explained, with the lazily rhythmical drawl in which most half-bred New-Englanders speak, “that I seemed to get along rather better with gentlemen. They give less trouble—as a general rule,” she added, with a glance at Marcia, as if she did not deny that there were exceptions, and Marcia might be a striking one.
Bartley seized his advantage. “Well, my wife hasn't been married long enough to be unreasonable. I guess you'd get along.”
They both laughed, and Marcia, blushing, joined them.
“Well, I thought when you first come up the steps you hadn't been married—well, not a great while,” said the landlady.
“No,” said Bartley. “It seems a good while to my wife; but we were only married day before yesterday.”
“The land!” cried Mrs. Nash.
“Bartley!” whispered Marcia, in soft upbraiding.