She considered this view, then shook her head unconvinced.
"He went to marriages and was kind to the women. He might have found the right maiden Himself, and won joy of her after He'd set the world right, if they hadn't killed Him."
Daniel stared.
"Don't say things like that, Sarah Jane! You don't mean it for profane speaking; but 'tis very near it, and makes me feel awful scared."
"What have I said now, dear heart? I never know what you think 'bout things. You change so. If 'tis holier and better to bide single—but there—what foolishness! Jesus Christ set store by little children anyway; and He knowed you can't have 'em without getting 'em."
Brendon rose up from the table and kissed her neck.
"You'm a darling creature," he said, "and to look at you be to make single life but a frosty thing in a man's eyes, no doubt. Certainly 'twould be false for me to say a word against marriage; only it ban't for all; and the Christian religion shows that there are many can do more useful work out of it than in it."
"Poor things!" she said in her pride. "Let 'em do what they can, then. But I'd be sorry to think that a churchyard stone, getting crookeder every year, was all that was left to remember me by when I went."
"That's your narrowness, Sarah. There's other contrivances beside babbies that a man or a woman can bring into the world. Goodness and proper actions, and setting an example, and such like."
"Parson's work," she said. "What's that to taking your share in the little ones? If I thought us should have no childer, I'd so soon hang myself as not, Dan."