“It has held,” he said, without emotion, “but I reckon we will hev to be merried proper.”
“Likewise I have my weddin' dress,” Aunt Jane went on, “what ain't never been worn. It's a beautiful dress—trimmed with pearl trimmin'”—here Ruth felt the pangs of a guilty conscience—“and I lay out to be married in it, quite private, with you and Hepsey for witnesses.”
“Why, it's quite a romance, isn't it, Aunty?”
“'T is in a way,” interjected Mr. Ball, “and in another way, 't ain't.”
“Yes, Ruth,” Aunt Jane continued, ignoring the interruption, “'t is a romance—a real romance,” she repeated, with all the hard lines in her face softened. “We was engaged over thirty-five year. James went to sea to make a fortin', so he could give me every luxury. It's all writ out in a letter I've got upstairs. They's beautiful letters, Ruth, and it's come to me, as I've been settin' here, that you might make a book out'n these letters of James's. You write, don't you?”
“Why, yes, Aunty, I write for the papers but I've never done a book.”
“Well, you'll never write a book no earlier, and here's all the material, as you say, jest a-waitin' for you to copy it. I guess there's over a hundred letters.”
“But, Aunty,” objected Ruth, struggling with inward emotion, “I couldn't sign my name to it, you know, unless I had written the letters.”
“Why not?”
“Because it wouldn't be honest,” she answered, clutching at the straw, “the person who wrote the letters would be entitled to the credit—and the money,” she added hopefully.