“Oh, she’ll come here,” he said. “I know she will, when I make her see what a big chance this idea of mine gives us. I think I can get her to try it, anyhow; and if she’ll just do that it’ll come out all right.”
“You think she’ll be a great help to you, do you, while you’re working with a wheelbarrow out on Ornaby’s farm?”
“Do I?” he exclaimed, and added radiantly: “ ‘A help?’ Why, grandma, she—she’ll be a great deal more than a help; she’ll be an inspiration! That’s exactly what she’ll be, grandma.”
Old Mrs. Savage looked at him fixedly, sighed, and spoke as in a reverie. “Ah, me! How many, many young men I’ve seen believing such things in my long time here! How many, many I’ve seen that were going to do big things, and how many that thought some no-account girl was going to be their inspiration!”
“Grandma!” he cried indignantly, and rose from his chair. “You haven’t any right to speak of her like that.”
“No right?” she said quietly. “No, I s’pose not. I wonder how many hundred times in my life I’ve been told I hadn’t any right to speak the truth. It must be so.”
“But it isn’t the truth,” Dan protested, and in a plaintive agitation he moved toward the door. “I showed you a photograph of the sweetest, noblest, most beautiful woman that’s ever come into my life, and you speak of her as—as—well, as you just did speak of her, grandma! I wouldn’t hurt your feelings for the world, but I—well, you aren’t fair. I don’t want to say any more than that, so I expect I better go.”
“Wait!” she said sharply; and he halted in the doorway. “You wait a minute, young man. I’m going to say my last say to you, and you better listen!”
“Yes, of course I will, if you want me to, grandma,” he assented, as he came back into the room and stood before her. “Only I hope you won’t say anything against her; and I don’t think you ought to call it your ‘last say’ to me. I’m sure you won’t stop speakin’ to me.”
“Won’t I?” she asked; and he was aware of a strange pathos in her glance, and that her head constantly shook a little. “Won’t I? I’m going to stop speaking to everybody, Dan, before long.”