"I do not wish to marry again, Mr. Butts; neither you nor anyone."
"Very proper, very proper, Delia," he replied. "It wouldn't look well if you did—at any rate, if you showed it. But why shouldn't you? The children are gone now—you can't hold them up against me any more."
"Yes, the children are both settled now, and doing nicely," she admitted.
"You don't want to go and live with them—either one of them—do you?" he asked.
"I should prefer to stay here," she answered.
"Exactly! And you can't! You'd rather live here and be a grandee—but you can't do it. Keepin' house for boarders isn't any better than keepin' house for me, as I see. You'd much better marry me."
"I should prefer to keep the house without you, Mr. Butts."
"I know you would. But you can't, I tell you. I'd like to know what a woman of your age can do with a house like this—and no money? You can't live eternally on hens' eggs and garden truck. That won't pay the mortgage."
Mrs. Morrison looked at him with her cordial smile, calm and non-committal. "Perhaps I can manage it," she said.
"That mortgage falls due two years from Thanksgiving, you know."