Walter was seated just opposite his brother, full of life and fun, as he threw off his gay remarks now on this side and now on that.  Suddenly he looked across at Amos, and something in the situation of his brother between the old lady and her daughter struck him as so irresistibly funny, that it was with the utmost difficulty that he restrained himself from a violent outburst of laughter.  And, certainly, to one easily moved to merriment there was something singularly quaint and almost comic in the contrast between the subdued but courteous manner of Amos, who was patiently endeavouring to make himself agreeable to his two immediate neighbours, and the excited frivolity of Miss Morse's running fire of worldly commonplaces, occasionally interrupted by her mother's more staid utterances of a similar character.