The Whole Family: a Novel by Twelve Authors

								

though,” and he laughed, as if to show how helpless he had been, “at
what my wife said. She said she guessed if it came to that they would
get to know more of each other's looks than they did of their minds. She
had me there, but I don't think my girl has made out so very poorly even
as far as books are concerned.”
Upon this invitation to praise her, I ventured to say, “A young lady of
Miss Talbert's looks doesn't need much help from books.”
I could see that what I had said pleased him to the core, though he put
on a frown of disclaimer in replying, “I don't know about her looks.
She's a GOOD girl, though, and that's the main thing, I guess.”
“For her father, yes, but other people don't mind her being pretty,” I
persisted. “My wife says when Miss Talbert comes out into the garden,
the other flowers have no chance.”
“Good for Mrs. Temple!” my neighbor shouted, joyously giving himself
away.
I have always noticed that when you praise a girl's beauty to her
father, though he makes a point of turning it off in the direction of
her goodness, he likes so well to believe she is pretty that he cannot
hold out against any persistence in the admirer of her beauty. My
neighbor now said with the effect of tasting a peculiar sweetness in my
words, “I guess I shall have to tell my wife, that.” Then he added, with
a rush of hospitality, “Won't you come in and tell her yourself?”
“Not now, thank you. It's about our tea-time.”
“Glad it isn't your DINNER-time!” he said, heartily.
“Well, yes. We don't see the sense of dining late in a place like this.
The fact is, we're both village-bred, and we like the mid-day dinner. We
make rather a high tea, though.”
“So do we. I always want a dish of something hot. My wife thinks cake is
light, but I think meat is.”
“Well, cake is the New England superstition,” I observed. “And I suppose
York State, too.”
“Yes, more than pie is,” he agreed. “For supper, anyway. You may have
pie at any or all of the three meals, but you have GOT to have cake
at tea, if you are anybody at all. In the place where my wife lived, a
woman's social standing was measured by the number of kinds of cake she
had.”
We laughed at that, too, and then there came a little interval and I
said, “Your place is looking fine.”
He turned his head and gave it a comprehensive stare. “Yes, it is,” he
admitted. “They tell me it's an ugly old house, and I guess if my girls,
counting my daughter-in-law, had their way, they would have that French
roof off, and something Georgian--that's what they call it--on, about as
quick as the carpenter could do it. They want a kind of classic front,
with pillars and a pediment; or more the Mount Vernon style, body
yellow, with white trim. They call it Georgian after Washington?” This
was obviously a joke.
“No, I believe it was another George, or four others. But I don't