"I can't help it. His life has been so hard, and yet it has made him so considerate and so gentle. Mother, why haven't I met such a man among our friends—why didn't I see one in my travels?"
"My daughter, can't you understand the strange interest you take in him? Have you considered the circumstances—"
"I have considered everything, and it would have been the same no matter where we might have met. Mother," she said, turning with a smile, more than sad in the dim light, "do you know that old log cabin over on the hill where the pension woman used to live? Yes, for we could see it from here in daylight. I passed there today, coming home, and I stopped and gazed at the wretched place, and suddenly there came a thought that almost took my breath away. I thought that with him—" she leaned over and took her mother's hand—"that with him I could live there and bless God for my happiness."
"My darling child, you must not think that—you couldn't think that."
"But I did, and though the world seemed further away, heaven was closer. I ought to have been a poor man's daughter, mother, for love is all there is to live for."
They put their arms about each other. "It would break your father's heart," the mother said, her tears falling. "It would crush him to the earth."
"I know it, and my heart may be crushed, instead of his. But that petition must not be signed."
"Let us wait, my child. Don't say anything. Don't—"
They heard McElwin calling from the foot of the stairs. "Lucy, Lucy, I think I'll have to go down town again."
"Wait a moment," his wife cried, hastening out, Eva following her. He turned back before they reached the foot of the stairs, and had resumed his anxious walk when they entered the parlor.