"Did you see Fletcher's boy, Christopher?" she asked. "His grandfather was over here looking for him."
"Fletcher over here? Well, of all the impudence!"
"He was very uneasy, but he stopped long enough to ask me to persuade you to part with the farm. He'd give three thousand dollars down for it, he said."
She dusted the bureau abstractedly with her checked apron and then stood looking wistfully into the mirror.
"Is that so? If he'd give me three million I wouldn't take it," answered Christopher.
"It seems a mistake, dear," said Cynthia softly; "of course, I'd hate to oblige Fletcher, too, but we are so poor, and the money would mean so much to us. I used to feel as you do, but somehow I seem all worn out now—soul as well as body. I haven't the strength left to hate."
"Well, I have," returned Christopher shortly, "and I'll have it when I'm gasping over my last breath. You needn't bother about that business, Cynthia; I can keep up the family record on my own account. What's the proverb about us—'a Blake can hate twice as long as most men can love'—that's my way, you know."
"You didn't finish it," said Cynthia, turning from the bureau; "it's all downstairs in the 'Life of Bolivar Blake'; you remember Colonel Byrd got it off in a toast at a wedding breakfast, and Great-grandfather Bolivar was so proud of it he had it carved above his library door."
"High and mighty old chap, wasn't he? But what's the rest?"
"What he really said was: 'A Blake can hate twice as long as most men can love, and love twice as long as most men can live.'"