Dick Courtlandt's Boy

And all the while Mrs. Harrigan was talking and he was replying; and she
thought him charming, whereas he had not formed any opinion of her at all,
nor later could remember a word of the conversation.

"Tea!" bawled the colonel. The verb had its distinct uses, and one
generally applied it to the colonel's outbursts without being depressed by
the feeling of inelegance.

There is invariably some slight hesitation in the selection of chairs
around a tea-table in the open. Nora scored the first point of this
singular battle by seizing the padre on one side and her father on the
other and pulling them down on the bench. It was adroit in two ways: it
put Courtlandt at a safe distance and in nowise offended the younger men,
who could find no cause for alarm in the close proximity of her two
fathers, the spiritual and the physical. A few moments later Courtlandt
saw a smile of malice part her lips, for he found himself between Celeste
and the inevitable frump.

"Touched!" he murmured, for he was a thorough sportsman and appreciated a
good point even when taken by his opponent.

"I never saw anything like it," whispered Mrs. Harrigan into the colonel's
ear.

"Saw what?" he asked.

"Mr. Courtlandt can't keep his eyes off of Nora."

"I say!" The colonel adjusted his eye-glass, not that he expected to see
more clearly by doing so, but because habit had long since turned an
affectation into a movement wholly mechanical. "Well, who can blame him?
Gad! if I were only twenty-five or thereabouts."