Winona turned from the recitationist.
"What?
Repulsed again?
Ah, well, there's always the river! Duchess, bear witness, 'twas her coldness drove me to the rash act--she with her beauty that maddens all be-holders!" Winona was shocked, yet not unpleasantly, at these monstrous implications.

She dreaded to have him begin--and yet she would have him.
She tried to sign to him now that matters were to the fore too grave for clumsy fooling, but he only took the book from her hand to read its title.
"'Matthew Arnold--How to Know Him,'" he read.

"Ah, yes! Ah, yes! But is he worth knowing ?" "Oh!" exclaimed Winona, wincing.
"No respect for God or man," mumbled the judge, meaning that a creature capable of calling him Old Flapdoodle could be expected to ask if Matthew Arnold were worth knowing.
The Wilbur twin here thrust the blue jay upon his father with cordial words.

Dave professed to be entranced with the gift.

It appeared that he had always longed for a stuffed blue jay.