on my frankness, Squire, I
know you will. I am apt to talk right out just as I happen to feel."

"Certainly, certainly, Mr. Fairbanks. I always admired frankness.
Perhaps you say too much of our daughter; but she is a very good sort
of a girl; and we tried, as far as we were able, to give her a
common-sense view of things, and have her respectable. I am thankful
that she is not as brazen as some girls; and good health has flushed
her face with fresh and blooming looks."

"You needn't fear for _that_ girl--pardon my freedom, Squire. No young
lady of such a turned forehead, and such eyes and address, ever came
short of what good parents desired."

"Then you are a phrenologist, Mr. Fairbanks?"

"I have studied such things considerably, and am not often mistaken.
High and full in all the frontal and coronal regions--such heads are
never given to flirts or fools."

"She is just as the Lord has permitted her to be; and we are thankful
that she has filled our home with so much light and joy."

"I know she must be dutiful; and at the same time wishing to know the
whys and wherefores of things, she asks a few questions, I suspect,
that she may know something, and have an opinion of her own."

"She never did a thing, as I recollect, that caused us an hour's
regret; but, as you say, she wishes to know things for herself; and
sometimes, when we have been tired and dull, she has wearied us with
questions. She has a great mind to acquire knowledge, and have an
intelligent opinion; and we ought never to be impatient with her, or
refuse an answer."

"She may thank father and mother for that disposition, I suspect. How
much she looks like her mother! And still she has your forehead, and
eyes, _almost_--if I remember right; and I should know she was your
daughter, if I met her in France."

"Her eyes are much lighter and bluer than mine; but they may resemble
them in shape and size. As for her hair--"

"I was just a-going to ask where she got that fairy flaxen hair?"

"We cannot tell where the color came from, except from our white blood.
My hair was light when a boy."

"That then accounts for hers."

"But never so milk-white as hers."

"Hers will grow dark, you may depend; it will be dark as yours when as
old. But what if it is not? I should like it all the better as it is;
it is handsome _enough_, and it is not so common as brown or black."

"But here it is nearly dark, and I have not had the manners to invit