All at once, she became restless, capricious, unhappy.  She had been at school up to this period, but now insisted that she was too old for that; her mother seconded this view of the matter, and her father, a man of pretty good sense, had to yield.

“We must give Anna a party now,” said Mrs. Wyman, after their daughter had left school.

“Why so?” asked the father.

“Oh—­because it is time that she was beginning to come out.”

“Come out, how?”

“You are stupid, man.  Come out in the list of young ladies.  Go into company.”

“But she is a mere child, yet—­not sixteen.”

“Not sixteen!  And how old was I, pray, when you married me?”

The husband did not reply.

“How old was I, Mr. Wyman?”

“About sixteen, I believe.”

“Well; and was I a mere child?”

“You were rather young to marry, at least,” Mr. Wyman ventured to say.  This remark was made rather too feelingly.

“Too young to marry!” ejaculated the wife, in a tone of surprise and indignation—­“too young to marry; and my husband to say so, too!  Mr. Wyman, do you mean to intimate—­do you mean to say?—­Mr. Wyman, what do you mean by that remark?”

“Oh, nothing at all,” soothingly replied the husband; “only that I”—­

“What?”

“That I don’t, as a general thing, approve of very early marriages.  The character of a young lady is not formed before twenty-one or two; nor has she gained that experience and knowledge of the world that will enable her to choose with wisdom.”

“You don’t pretend to say that my character was not formed at sixteen?” This was accompanied by a threatening look.

Whatever his thoughts were, Mr. Wyman took good care not to express them.  He merely said—­

“I believe, Margaret, that I haven’t volunteered any allusion to you.”

“Yes, but you don’t approve of early marriages.”

“True.”

“Well, didn’t I marry at sixteen?  And isn’t your opinion a reflection upon your wife?”

“Circumstances alter cases,” smilingly returned Mr. Wyman.  “Few women at sixteen were like you.  Very certainly your daughter is not.”

“There I differ with you, Mr. Wyman.  I believe our Anna would make as good a wife now as I did at sixteen.  She is as much of a woman in appearance; her mind is more matured, and her education advanced far beyond what mine was.  She deserves a good husband, and must have one before the lapse of another year.”

“How can you talk so, Margaret?  For my part, I do not wish to see her married for at least five years.”

“Preposterous!  I wouldn’t give a cent for a marriage that takes place after seventeen or eighteen.  They are always indifferent affairs, and rarely ever turn out well.  The earlier the better, depend upon it.  First love and first lover, is my motto.”

“Well, Margaret, I suppose you will have these matters your own way; but I don’t agree with you for all.”