"'Tis only putting off the workhouse."
"Maybe--yet a good thing to put it off. They'll be too old to smart soon; and then it won't matter."
"How's Rhoda Bowden?" he asked suddenly.
"Very well, so far as I know."
"I've hardly seen a wink of her since I came back. Yet somehow, Madge, I find her terrible interesting."
"She's a fine character, Bartley."
"Well, when I went up to Barnstaple for three months after the fight, I did two things: I learned a trade, as you know, and I thought a lot off and on of Rhoda Bowden."
"Yes."
"'Tis something to be anything at all. Now, if anybody asks what I am, I can say I am an upholsterer. My uncle was well pleased for me to learn the business, and a very nice girl helped me how to do it. But, somehow, while I looked at her clever hands I thought of Rhoda Bowden."
"You ought to tell Rhoda, then--not me."