ed very well, or rather that it had a chance. You see, her mother
had to apply it; I was always too busy. And a curious thing was that
though the girl looked like me, she was a good deal more like her mother
in temperament and character."

"Perhaps," I ventured, "that's the reason why she was your favorite."

He dropped his head in rather a shamefaced way, but lifted it with
another laugh. "Well, there may be something in that. Not," he gravely
retrieved himself, "that we have ever distinguished between our
children."

"No, neither have we. But one can't help liking the ways of one child
better than another; one will rather take the fancy more than the rest."

"Well," my neighbor owned, "I don't know but it's that kind of shyness
in them both. I suppose one likes to think his girl looks like him,
but doesn't mind her being like her mother. I'm glad she's got my
constitution, though. My eldest daughter is more like her grandmother in
looks, and I guess she's got her disposition too, more. I don't know,"
he said, vaguely, "what the last one is going to be like. She seems to
be more worldly. But," he resumed, strenuously, as if the remembrance of
old opposition remained in his nerves, "when it came to this going off
to school, or college, or whatever, I put my foot down, and kept it
down. I guess her mother was willing enough to do my way, but her sister
was all for some of those colleges where girls are educated with other
girls and not with young men. She said they were more ladylike, and a
lot more stuff and nonsense, and were more likely to be fit for society.
She said this one would meet a lot of jays, and very likely fall in
love with one; and when we first heard of this affair of Peggy's I don't
believe but what her sister got more satisfaction out of it than I did.
She's quick enough! And a woman likes to feel that she's a prophetess at
any time of her life. That's about all that seems to keep some of them
going when they get old." I knew that here he had his mother-in-law
rather than his daughter in mind, and I didn't interrupt the sarcastic
silence into which he fell. "You've never met the young man, I believe?"
he asked, at quite another point, and to the negation of my look he
added, "To be sure! We've hardly met him ourselves; he's only been here
once; but you'll see him--you and Mrs. Temple. Well!" He lifted his
head, as if he were going away, but he did not lift his arms from the
fence, and so I knew that