“You have seen—you are pleased?” he continued in haphazard fashion.
“Bless your soul, Sidney,” burst out Miss Tribbey, forgetting to be formal, “I’m pleased if so be you’re happy. I ain’t very religious. I expect I have a worldly heart. I’m like Martha in the Bible, allus looking after cooking and sich, but I’ve said to my Nathan heaps o’ times, ‘He’s a blessing,’ I said, ‘to have in the house,’ and I mean it. My soul! I only hope Vashti ’ll come up to your expectation.”
“Ah,” said Sidney, “there’s no doubt of that. She’s perfect.”
Miss Tribbey’s mouth half opened, then shut resolutely. She had her own standard of perfection, but she had too much sense to deprecate the lover’s fond extravagance.
“I’m perfectly content,” said Sidney, “perfectly.”
Miss Tribbey grew very white.
“Don’t say that,” she said earnestly, “don’t; no good ever came of sich a boast. It’s terrible dangerous t’ say you are perfectly content. I never knew good to come of it—never.”
“But I am,” said Sidney, feeling happy enough to challenge the powers of evil en masse.
“Listen,” said Temperance gravely, “don’t say that. ’Taint meant for mortal man to be content. ’Taint intended. What would make us work for Heaven if we was perfectly content here? No, don’t say it. I’ve known one or two people that thought themselves perfectly content, and how soon they was brought down! There was Mrs. Winder. Has anyone told you about Mrs. Winder?”