“But there were times, I know there were times when you might have, if you were tied to me! We were each free to go and come. But it’s not that, Jim, I’m so afraid of. It’s the keeping on at what we have been doing, the danger of not keeping decent, of getting our thoughts and feelings deadened, of getting our hearts macadamized. That’s why I could never marry you until we are both honest once more!”
“But if I do try to get decent—I can’t promise to turn angel all at once, you know!—if I do try to be decent, then will you marry me, and help me along?”
“I don’t look for miracles,—neither of us can be all good, anyway; it’s the trying to be good!”
“But we have tried—so often!”
“Who was it said that the Saints were only the sinners who kept on trying?”
“Wasn’t there a bishop in your family?” he asked, with a quizzical little upthrust of his mouth corners.
“A bishop?” she asked, all gravity.
“There must have been a bishop, somewhere—you take to preaching so easily!”
“It’s only to make it easier for you,” she reproved him. Then she added drearily, “Heaven knows, I’m not self-righteous!”
“Then take me as I am, and you will be making it easier for me!”