"I'll tell you what she says, Ben. She don't like it. All her reasons I cannot tell: one I'm dead sure about. It's a come-down for her Jane to marry Jerry. I grant that. I've told Jerry so too."
"Perfect love casteth out any such thought," said Mr. Bamsey.
"It may cast it out, but it will come back. In some girls it wouldn't. In Jane it will. Jane's on powerful good terms with herself, as you'll grant. The toad knows she's a beauty, and she knows a lot else—a lot more than Jerry knows for that matter."
"You don't like her," said Mr. Bamsey.
"I do not; and she don't like me."
Ben was silent.
"She came up to tea Sunday, and I seed 'em side by side. She's sly and she's making Jerry sly. How the devil she's larned such an open sort of creature as Jerry to keep secrets I don't know. But secrets they've got. I dare say they'll be married. But I agree with Faith Bamsey that it won't come to overmuch good. I don't think Jane is a very likely pattern of wife."
"She's young and there's bright points to her. She wasn't saucy nor anything like that I hope?"
"Oh no—butter wouldn't melt in her mouth."
"What does Melinda think about her?"