“Isn’t it a vast relief, after the endless restlessness of our people,” said Anne, “to fall among folks who are contented, and home-loving, and so uncomplicated?”
“I certainly think so,” said Carington. “And what a surprise it is to meet the stray descendants of loyalists hereabouts and on the 'St. John’s’—I ought to say the ‘Aroostook,’ there are so many ‘St. John’s.’ Some of the best of the Canadians are descendants of those people; but, for the most part, those who settled in certain quarters of Lower Canada are down again to the level of mere laborers or fishermen.”
“And no better off,” said Ellett. “I mean no more energetic than—well, than I am. I hate the very word energy. I quite share your opinions, Miss Lyndsay. There is a nice little conundrum about that word—sounds better in French. But, pardon me, I never repeat conundrums, or make puns.”
“I am so sorry. Are you past persuasion?”
“That is another matter. It will keep. I think, Mr. Lyndsay, you were about to say—”
“I forget. But no matter. One may talk about, and about things, at breakfast especially. It is pleasant to feel that you may kick—that any one concerned may kick—the foot-ball of talk without reference to a goal.”
“I don’t think my friend Carington would agree to that,” said Ellett. “He likes talk to be well feathered, and go straight home—”
“And I like it,” cried Anne, “to be well feathered, and go zigzag home, or not, like a bird.”
“And, for my part, aside from Ellett’s calumnious nonsense,” laughed Carington, “I have no social creed as to good talk. If it bears sharp analysis, it is probably poor talk.”
“But,” said Anne, “there are some essentials. One must reverse the great maxim that it is more blessed to give than to receive.”
Mrs. Lyndsay regarded the maiden lady with a look of reprobation, in which were trial, judgment, and execution. She reserved her verbal attack for a better occasion, while Anne, unconscious of offense, went on, “Wasn’t it Mr. Lowell, Archie, who said at our table, when you questioned him as to the best talkers he had met, ‘Oh, the best are those who meet you’? I thought that delicately put.”
“But then he added,” said Lyndsay, “when you mentioned G. M. as on the whole the most remarkable of dinner talkers, that he had not the essential conversational art of punctuation. That his sentences were like those of Judge Jeffries, eternal How one spoils such a thing in the telling! We all smiled at it a little. Our friend himself liked an audience, and to have, at times, the royal freedom of unbroken talk. North, a friend of ours, Mr. Carington, has a theory that breakfast talks are the best.”