“Mary, I beg of you, do not misunderstand me. I have no wish to dispose of them. Kenneth may not fall in love with either of them, though I don’t see how he can help it” (this under his breath), “and neither of them may care in the least for him, but it would gladden my heart if the thing could be. He is an admirable fellow in every way, and during the past month he has gone into business with his father. Did you know that? There is no doubt that he could make a comfortable home for them all. Even if nothing comes of it I want him to know them—he’ll be a better man all his life for knowing them—and I want them to have a little diversion, a little outside interest to take them out of the rut. I’ll leave it all to you, Mary,” he ended, with a comfortable feeling of security.
“I suppose, you know,” she said as she was leaving, “that both the girls have had several offers of marriage.”
“Mr. Dale mentioned it when he was discussing the question of my chaperoning them this winter. He said he wanted me to understand that the girls were in some ways much older than their years and that having been, through their constant companionship with him, thrown much into the society of men, it was natural they should have had that experience. He also said that neither girl had the slightest desire to marry for the present or had ever shown any preference for one man above another. I fancied from what he said that their manner toward men was frank, rather a sort of ‘camaraderie’ than the silly sentimental attitude some girls affect.”
“You are perfectly right, Mary, they have a most engaging frankness of manner.”
“Certainly,” suddenly apprehensive of the question coming.
“How do you know they are beating their arms off over batches of dough”—the phrase seemed to have stuck in her mind—“I mean how did you realize it? Did they tell you?”
“Not they;” secretly relieved, “I hear it from Bridget. She worries her faithful old heart out about them and vows me to secrecy when she confides in me, for she says they would never forgive her if they knew she took it so hard.”
“Good old Bridget,” he said to himself, for his sister had vanished without another word, “how my little girls would scold her!”