That is a fond liberty to which I take exception; but it is one thing to take exception and another to express it.
Our daughter is with us, permanently with us.

She declares that she intends to be the prop of our declining years; she makes the statement often, and always as if it were humorous.

Nevertheless I sometimes notice a spirit of inquiry, a note of investigation in her encounters with the opposite sex that suggests an expectation not yet extinct that another and perhaps a more appreciative Dacres Tottenham may flash across her field of vision--alas, how improbable! Myself I can not imagine why she should wish it; I have grown in my old age into a perfect horror of cultivated young men; but if such a person should by a miracle at any time appear, I think it is extremely improbable that I will interfere on his behalf.
2.

An Impossible Ideal..