“Ef yeou’ll marry me, I’ll make one o’ th’ fust ladies o’ Dearb’rn Caounty aout o’ yeh. Yeh need never lay yer finger to a stitch o’ work agin, no more’n Is’bel did, daown yander.” He spoke eagerly, with more emotion in his strident voice than she had ever heard there before.
The difficulty of her position crushed her courage. Of course she must say no, but how do it without affronting him? The idea of reasoning him gently out of the preposterous wish came to her.
“This is some flying notion in your head, Milton,” she said, civilly. “You will have forgotten it by next week.”
“Forgott’n it, ay! Yeh think sao? What ’f I told yeh I hain’t thought o’ nothin’ else fur nigh onto ten year?”
His tone was too earnest and excited to render further trifling safe. He pulled out of an inner pocket and held up before her a little, irregularly squared tin-type—which she recognized as having been made in whimsical burlesque of her lineaments by an itinerant photographer years before.
“How did you come by that?” she asked, to gain time.
“I got it fr’m th’ man thet made it, ’n’ I paid a dollar bill fer it, tew,” he answered triumphantly, “’n’ I’ve kep it by me ever sence!”
After a pause she said, as calmly as she could: “I never dreamed that such a thought had entered your head. Of course, it—it can’t be.”
“Why not, I’d like to knaow?” he demanded. “Don’t yeh b’lieve what I’ve told yeh ’baout my bein’ well off?”
“That hasn’t anything to do with it. There are other reasons—a good many other reasons.”