"Uncle George is never stupid, and he couldn't be old.

What would all these young girls do--what would I have done" (another love affair with St.
George as healer and mender!)--"what would anybody have done without him?
Come, Miss Lavinia--do you hear the colonel abusing Uncle George because he isn't married?
Speak up for him--it's wicked of you, colonel, to talk so." Miss Lavinia Clendenning, who was one of St.George's very own, in spite of her forty-odd years, threw back her head until the feathers in her slightly gray hair shook defiantly: "No--I won't say a word for him, Sue.

I've given him up forever.

He's a disgrace to everybody who knows him." "Oh, you renegade!" exclaimed St.George in mock alarm.
"Yes,--a positive disgrace! He'll never marry anybody, Sue, until he marries me.

I've begged him on my knees until I'm tired, to name the day, and he won't! Just like all you shiftless Marylanders, sir--never know when to make up your minds." "But you threw me over, Lavinia, and broke my heart," laughed Temple with a low bow, his palms flattened against his waistcoat in assumed humility.
"When ?" "Oh, twenty years ago." "Oh, my goodness gracious! Of course I threw you over then;--you were just a baby in arms and I was old enough to be your mother--but now it's different.