The Man in Possession — page 203: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

198 THE MAN IN POSSESSION. consulted his father-in-law, and the worthy Cornelius cheered him to the best of his ability. He assured the young man that girls were so odd and so fanciful that there really was no knowing what to make of them... that they never knew their own minds ... that their elders had always to counsel and look after them. As far as he himself was concerned, Cornelius was delighted that Mrs. Lafaye should have taken such a fancy to Kate. He knew her friendship possessed a certain marketable value. sir Wilfred, however, was not to be consoled even by the Irishman’s talk, and had sulked himself into a fit of the blues by the time that last evening came. Even the prospect of a speedy ‘‘run up” to town to see his affianced did not present itself in a cheering aspect, and as for the marriage itself that seemed too vague and far off an event to be even hinted at. He sulked during dinner, and absolutely glared at Mrs. Lafaye, who sat opposite, in a dress that some one described as a ‘‘dream of pearls and gossamer.” Certainly it was airy enough and fragile enough to have been the creation of a fairy’s Joom. .As usual she was entertaining the whole of her side of the table, and apparently quite ignorant of Sir Wilfred’s wrathful sentiments. ‘“Who the d——I could have been such a fool as to say the ‘American woman’ is the ‘most perfect creation of the century,’” he muttered wrathfully. ‘*T think it was some one writing in the New York Herald,” said Kate, glancing with some amusement at his gloomy face. ‘‘ You don’t agree with him, I 39 see, COMicloe (Sri C(O)