“You're too late, Ivory! You showed me your heart first, and now you are searching your mind for bugbears to frighten me.”
“I am a poor man.”
“No girl could be poorer than I am.”
“After what you've endured, you ought to have rest and comfort.”
“I shall have both—in you!” This with eyes, all wet, lifted to Ivory's.
“My mother is a great burden—a very dear and precious, but a grievous one.”
“She needs a daughter. It is in such things that I shall be your helpmate.”
“Will not the boy trouble you and add to your cares?”
“Rod? I love him; he shall be my little brother.”
“What if my father were not really dead?—I think of this sometimes in the night!—What if he should wander back, broken in spirit, feeble in body, empty in purse?”