"We should have been very formal and polite, and then have gone our several ways," said Sedgwick.
"Yes, because you are a man of principle, and I hope my pride of womanhood would have sustained me, but my heart would have broken, for with me it was a mad passion which absorbed my life before I had been in your presence half an hour," said Grace; and then added: "I do not any more wonder at the crimes which come of mismated marriages."
Then Sedgwick told her how, when he left her side the first time, he took that ride and asked cabbie how much they would charge at Newgate to hang him.
And they both laughed, but there were tears in the eyes of Grace even while she smiled. But she rallied in a moment and said:
"Why not buy the place still? Except to leave my mother, I would be on that farm with you as happy a wife as ever lived. I would rather live upon that hill than in our great modern Babel, London."
Just then the cutter went in and out of a "Thank-ee-mom"—a hollow between two snowdrifts—and Sedgwick bent and kissed his wife.
"Thanks," said Grace.
"That was a kiss on principle. That was a pure duty," said Sedgwick. Then he explained how venerable was the custom, and elaborated upon the respect due it because of its age and its usefulness to bashful lovers, because a youth must kiss the girl who goes sleighing with him whenever he comes to a "Thank-ee-mom" among the drifts.
"What a poor old country England is," said Grace.
"Why so?" asked Sedgwick.