humbly for a kind word,
I might have known that as soon as you got the kind word, you'd begin to
want to manage me body and soul--that's a man all over."

"I merely said that an engaged woman ought not to smile too free at
other men--and that you ought not to even more than others, because
there is something so inviting about you. Mr. Mullen would say the same
thing from the pulpit--and what one man can say in the pulpit, I reckon,
another may repeat in the road."

"No, he mayn't--not if he wants to marry me."

"If I promise not to say a word more about it, will you get over your
temper?"

"If you keep your promise, but how am I to know that you won't burst out
again the next time I look at a man?"

"Only try to look at them a little differently, Molly, not quite so
wide-eyed and red-lipped--but primmer and with lowered lashes, just a
bit contemptuous, as if your were thinking 'you might as well be a stick
or a stone for all the thought I am giving you.'" The mental picture
appeared to afford him satisfaction, for he resumed after a moment.
"I believe if you'd practise it a while before the glass you could do
it--you are so clever."

"Why on earth should I make myself ugly just to please you?"

"It wouldn't be making yourself ugly--I can't endure an ugly woman. All
I want you to be is sober."

"Then what made you fall in love with me? It certainly was not for
soberness."

He shook his head hopelessly, puzzled for the first time by the too
obvious contradiction between the ideal and the actual--between the
phantom of a man's imagination and the woman who enthralls his heart.

"To save my life I couldn't tell you why I did," he replied. "It does
seem, a bit foolish to fall in love with a woman as she is and then try
to make her over into something different."

"Judy Hatch was the person God intended for you, I'm sure of it."

"Well, I'm not, and if I were I'd go ahead and defeat his intentions
as I'm doubtless doing this minute. Let's make up now, so you'd as well
stop talking silliness."

"It's you that talks silliness, not I--as if I were going through life
lowering my lashes and looking contemptuous! But you're your mother all
over again. I've heard her say a dozen times that a girl who is born
homely ought to get down on her knees and thank the Lord for protecting
her from temptation."

"You never heard me say it, did you?"

"No, but I shall yet if I live long enough--and all because of your
ridicu