"Lord, Reuben, I ain't thought of all that for forty years!"
"No mo' have I, Sarah except when I see you on Sundays sittin' across the church from me. You were a beauty in yo' day, though some folks use to think that that little fair thing, Mary Hilliard, was better lookin'. To me 'twas like settin' a dairy maid beside a queen."
"Even my husband thought Mary Hilliard, was prettier," said Sarah, and her tone showed that this tribute to her youthful vanity had touched her heart.
"Well, I never did. You were al'ays too good for me an' I never begrudged you to Abner. He was a better man."
For an instant she looked at him steadily, while living honesty struggled in her bosom against loyalty to the dead.
"No, Reuben, Abner was not a better man," she said presently, as if the words were thrust out of her by a chastening conscience. "My pride kept me up after I had married him; but he was born shiftless an' he died shiftless. He never did a day's work in his life that I didn't drive him to. His children have never known how it was, for I've al'ays made 'em think he was a hard worker an' painstakin' to keep back his laziness from croppin' out in 'em, if I could."
"You've brought 'em up well. That's a fine son of yours that comes courtin' my gal, Sarah. I've hoped she'd fancy him for the sake of old times."
"I never thought of yo' recollectin' that feelin', Reuben. It makes me feel almost young again, an' I that old an' wo' out. I've had a hard life—thar's no disputin' it, marriage is mostly puttin' up with things, I reckon, when it ain't makin' believe."
"Thar's mighty few that gits the one that's meant for 'em," said Reuben, "that's sure enough. If we did we'd stop movin' forward, I suppose, an' begin to balk. I haven't much life now, except in Molly, an' it's the things that pleases or hurt her that I feel the most. She's got a warm heart an' a hot temper like you used to have, Sarah, an' the world ain't easy generally to yo' sort."
For a time Sarah was silent, her hands in their black woolen gloves gripping the handle of the basket.