Page:Maud Howe - Atlanta in the South.djvu/309

 quiet recesses of the card-room, he told his friend what had passed between himself and Feuardent that afternoon.

"Do you think your daughter is interested in the young man?" the Colonel inquired.

"Interested is too strong a term. I think she fancies the fellow a little, especially since his accident," the father reluctantly admitted.

"If you think that she fancies him, that is enough to convince me that she is in love with him."

"How can she tell? She does n't know any thing about love; she is not like other girls, Colonel. And you know as well as I do the worth of these first attachments,—mere flashes in the pan."

"I know what they are worth a great deal better than you do, or than you pretend to. If Miss Margaret was my daughter, I should be very thankful to bestow her hand on the first man who had touched her heart. It 's a dangerous thing, sir, when a woman learns that though love is eternal, its object may be very variable. You and I know that; but God forbid that our daughters should learn the fact. Depend upon it, the girl who marries the first man she falls in love with makes the most faithful and satisfied wife. She looks upon it as a definite thing; she is born once, loves and marries