Sophy Middleton plied her needle with something of a petulant air, while her grandmother spoke, and answered with a slight tone of vexation—“Everybody can’t think alike, that is certain. Archie Harris is well enough in his way, but he isn’t the only man in the world, that is one comfort.”
“And why don’t you like him?” pursued the old lady, resolved not to give up the point. “Tell me of one in the whole place that is better, or kinder, or cleverer. _I_ never saw such a one at any rate, and once upon a time, Sophy, you thought Archie a little better than most folks yourself, and have only changed your mind since Philip Greyson came home, I’m thinking.”
“Philip Greyson, indeed!” exclaimed Sophy, with a toss of her head, while her cheeks crimsoned in spite of herself.
“Yes, Philip Greyson,” said the old lady. “I suppose you think, Sophy, because I wear spectacles, I am half blind, and can’t see as far as I used to do. But I have my eyes about me, and maybe spy a little farther for my glasses, and I fancy that Philip, with his spruce uniform and navy buttons, will make you forget poor Archie altogether.”
“I am sure,” said Sophy, whose thread at that moment had got into such a knot that her undivided attention was necessary to disentangle it. “I’m sure Philip Greyson is nothing to _me_.”
“I hope he never may be, indeed,” said Mrs. Middleton emphatically. “These young midshipmen are wild blades, my dear, and I should never know a minute’s peace if you were to marry one. But Archie Harris, ah! Sophy, he is the husband for you; such a good son and brother—so quiet, and steady, and—”
“Stupid,” said Sophy, supplying with a laugh the word for which her grandmother paused. “Why, last night at Mrs. Morgan’s he scarcely said ten syllables, and say what you will, grandmother,” she continued, roused by the recollection of her last evening’s visit, “everybody likes a merry, talkative beau, who has seen something of the world, better than a fellow who sits by with a long face, and can do nothing to amuse one.”
“And that fellow isn’t Philip Greyson, I guess,” said her grandfather, who, on the opposite side of the fire, was calmly knocking the ashes from his pipe. “Phil is one of those chaps that have no lack of words in any company, if I may judge from the way in which I have heard him chatter at his own father’s table.”