"Yes, that's what I was afraid of. But, as a matter of fact, she isn't. She interests you by her very limitations. You can see the working of her mind, like that of a child. She isn't at all conscious even of her beauty."
"I don't believe young men can tell whether girls are conscious or not," said Mrs. Corey. "But I am not saying the Miss Laphams are not----" Her son sat musing, with an inattentive smile on his face. "What is it?"
"Oh! nothing. I was thinking of Miss Lapham and something she was saying. She's very droll, you know."
"The elder sister? Yes, you told me that. Can you see the workings of her mind too?"
"No; she's everything that's unexpected." Corey fell into another reverie, and smiled again; but he did not offer to explain what amused him, and his mother would not ask.
"I don't know what to make of his admiring the girl so frankly," she said afterward to her husband. "That couldn't come naturally till after he had spoken to her, and I feel sure that he hasn't yet."
"You women haven't risen yet--it's an evidence of the backwardness of your sex--to a conception of the Bismarck idea in diplomacy. If a man praises one woman, you still think he's in love with another. Do you mean that because Tom didn't praise the elder sister so much, he HAS spoken to HER?"
Mrs. Corey refused the consequence, saying that it did not follow. "Besides, he did praise her."
"You ought to be glad that matters are in such good shape, then. At any rate, you can do absolutely nothing."
"Oh! I know it," sighed Mrs. Corey. "I wish Tom would be a little opener with me."