tmouth or Williams or Yale, and it required
all the force of Jeff's robust personality to dissipate their erroneous
impressions of him. He took their daughters out of their arms and from
under their noses on long drives upon his buckboard, and it became a
convention with them to treat his attentions somewhat like those of a
powerful but faithful vassal.

Whether he was indifferent, or whether the young ladies were coy, none of
these official flirtations came to anything. He seemed not to care for
one more than another; he laughed and joked with them all, and had an
official manner with each which served somewhat like a disparity of years
in putting them at their ease with him. They agreed that he was very
handsome, and some thought him very talented; but they questioned whether
he was quite what you would call a gentleman. It is true that this
misgiving attacked them mostly in the mass; singly, they were little or
not at all troubled by it, and they severally behaved in an unprincipled
indifference to it.

Mrs. Durgin had the courage of her own purposes, but she had the fear of
Jeff's. After the first pang of the disappointment which took final shape
from his declaration that he was going to marry Cynthia, she did not
really care much. She had the habit of the girl; she respected her, she
even loved her. The children, as she thought of them, had known each
other from their earliest days; Jeff had persecuted Cynthia throughout
his graceless boyhood, but he had never intimidated her; and his mother,
with all her weakness for him, felt that it was well for him that his
wife should be brave enough to stand up against him.

She formulated this feeling no more than the others, but she said to
Westover, whom Jeff bade her tell of the engagement: "It a'n't exactly as
I could 'a' wished it to be. But I don't know as mothers are ever quite
suited with their children's marriages. I presume it's from always kind
of havin' had her round under my feet ever since she was born, as you may
say, and seein' her family always so shiftless. Well, I can't say that of
Frank, either. He's turned out a fine boy; but the father! Cynthy is one
of the most capable girls, smart as a trap, and bright as a biscuit.
She's masterful, too! she NEED to have a will of her own with Jeff."

Something of the insensate pride that mothers have in their children's
faults, as their quick tempers, or their wastefulness, or their
revengefulness, expressed itsel