It sprang to Peter's lips to ask what that was; but he forbore the question. There seemed to him an indelicacy in arriving at a comprehension of his love through another person's perceptions, even if that person was her mother. Mistress Amanda, however, was no muddy stream whence truth must be laboriously filtered out, but a clear fountain, throwing facts high and rapidly in the air for the dullest seer to take in. "She has a large vein of the practical in her. Probably you think--all you men think--that, with that soaring look, her feet never touch the ground. But you may take sentimental flights into the region of romance for the next ten years without interesting her enough to make her even look to see where you are. Don't woo her with poetry, my friend. She never reads it. I never saw her with any book of verse in her hand except a hymn-book." A wild idea of putting his talent to this use came to Peter. After a moment's reflection he turned it out, as he would have locked his barn door against a suspicious steed bearing about him marks of gipsy ownership. And herein did my honest hero show his Dutch descent in his characteristic rejection of schemes out of the range of his natural inclination. "I'm not much of a poet," he said, with an effort at a laugh. "You look at things rather too much from a sentimental standpoint," observed Mistress Amanda. She had beaten the thistle quite to powder, and, laying down her whip, adjusted her gauntlets and gathered the reins into a firm grasp. Her fine black eyes had a singular expression. "Not too much for _some_ women. The kind of sentiment there is in you is the kind that makes a man loyal, tender, and--of all things the rarest!--appreciative toward the woman you may marry. I wish girls were able to discriminate between the shepherding qualities in men and the huntsman's qualities. But they like the sound of the horn and the dash of the horses--the fiery eye and the masterful grip! Only after their gallants have thrown aside all their pretty trappings and come down to the plain garb of the household boss do they learn that a little kindness and consideration in a husband outranks all the more showy qualities." "Nellie certainly ain't one to be taken in by a glittering outside--I sh'd think," Peter remarked.