"Well, the fact is, Jonathan, polite lyin's the real foundation of all
good manners. What we'll ever do when we get to heaven where we have
to tell the truth whether we want to or not, I'm sure I don't know.
It'll be awful uncomfortable until we get used to it."

"The law says you should tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothin'
but the truth," persisted the literal wooer.

"Now, see here, Jonathan. Would you say that a dog's tail was false
and misleadin' just because it isn't the whole dog?"

This proposition was exceedingly confusing to Jonathan's intelligence,
but after careful consideration he felt obliged to say "No."

"Of course you wouldn't," Mrs. Burke continued triumphantly, quickly
following up her advantage. "You see a dog's tail couldn't be
misleading, 'cause the dog leads the tail, and not the tail the dog.
Any fool could see that."

Jonathan felt that he had been tricked, although he could not see just
how the thing had been accomplished; so he began again:

"Now Hepsey, we're wanderin' from the point, and you're just talkin'
to amuse yourself. Can't you come down to business? Here I am a
widower, and here you are a widowess, and we're both lonesome, and
we----"

"Who told you I was lonesome, I'd like to know?"

"Well, of course you didn't, 'cause you never tell anything to anyone.
But I guessed you was sometimes, from the looks of you."

Hepsey bent her head over her work and counted stitches a long time
before she looked up. Then she remarked slowly:

"There's an awful lot of sick people in the world, and I'm mighty
sorry for 'em; but they'll die, or they'll get well. I guess I'm more
sorry for people who have to go on livin', and workin' hard, when
they're just dyin' for somebody to love 'em, and somebody to love,
until the pain of it hurts like a wisdom tooth. No, I can't afford to
be lonesome much, and that's a fact. So I just keep busy, and if I get
too lonesome, I just go and jolly somebody that's lonesomer than I am,
and we both feel better; and if I get lonely lyin' awake at night, I
light a lamp and read Webster's Dictionary. Try it, Jonathan; it's a
sure anti-doubt."

"There you go again, tryin' to change the subject, just when I thought
you was goin' to say somethin'."

"But you don't really want to marry me. I'm not young, and I'm not
interestin': one or the other you've just got to be."

"You're mighty interestin' to me, Hepsey, anyway; and--and you're
mighty unselfish."