He began with a
laugh, "They both paid it into me so," and now I knew that he meant his
eldest daughter as well as her grandmother, "that my wife turned round
and took my part, and said it was the very best thing that could
happen; and she used all the arguments that I had used with her, when
she had her misgivings about it, and she didn't leave them a word to
say. A curious thing about it was, that though my arguments seemed to
convince them, they didn't convince me. Ever notice, how when another
person repeats what you've said, it sounds kind of weak and foolish?" I
owned that my reasons had at times some such way of turning against me
from the mouths of others, and he went on: "But they seemed to silence
her own misgivings, and she's been enthusiastic for the engagement ever
since. What's the reason," he asked, "why a man, if he's any way
impetuous, wants to back out of a situation just about the time a woman
has got set in it like the everlasting hills? Is it because she feels
the need of holding fast for both, or is it because she knows she
hasn't the strength to keep to her conclusion, if she wavers at all,
while a man can let himself play back and forth, and still stay put."
"Well, in a question like that," I said, and I won my neighbor's easy
laugh, "I always like to give my own sex the benefit of the doubt, and
I haven't any question but man's inconsistency is always attributable
to his magnanimity.
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