"Oh, he loves me because I am pretty and hard to win—just as you do," she retorted. "If I lost my hair or my teeth how many of you, do you think, would care for me to-morrow?"
"I should—before God I'd love you just as I do now," he answered with passion.
A half mocking, half tender sound broke from her lips.
"Then why don't you—every one of you, fall head over ears in love with
Judy Hatch?" she inquired.
"I don't because I loved you first, and I can't change, however badly you treat me. I'm sometimes tempted to think, Molly, that mother is right, and you are possessed of a devil."
"Your mother is a hard woman, and I pity the wife you bring home to her."
The softness had gone out of her voice at the mention of Sarah's name, and she had grown defiant and reckless.
"I don't think you are just to my mother, Molly," he said after a moment, "she has a kind heart at bottom, and when she nags at you it is most often for your good."
"I suppose it was for my mother's good that she kept her from going to church and made the old minister preach a sermon against her?"
"That's an old story—you were only a month old. Can't you forget it?"