"I can imagine that, and yet I can't imagine that, as things have turned out, you shouldn't be struck with the felicity. To get something so charming, and to get it of our own species."
"Of our own species? Tudieu!" said Mr. Probert looking up.
"Surely it is infinitely fresher and more amusing for me to marry an American. There's a dreariness in the way we have Gallicised."
"Against Americans I have nothing to say; some of them are the best thing the world contains. That's precisely why one can choose. They are far from being all like that."
"Like what, dear father?"
"Comme ces gens-là. You know that if they were French, being otherwise what they are, one wouldn't look at them."
"Indeed one would; they would be such curiosities."
"Well, perhaps they are sufficiently so as it is," said Mr. Probert, with a little conclusive sigh.
"Yes, let them pass for that. They will surprise you."
"Not too much, I hope!" cried the old man, opening his volume again.
It will doubtless not startle the reader to learn that the complexity of things among the Proberts was such as to make it impossible for Gaston to proceed to the celebration of his nuptials, with all the needful circumstances of material prepara-
