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“Consequently,” said Asaph, deliberately filling his pipe, “it stands to reason that there ain’t nothin’ for you to do but marry money.”

Thomas Rooper took his pipe from his mouth and sat up straight. Gazing steadfastly at his companion, he remarked, “If you think that is such a good thing to do, why don’t you do it yourself? There can’t be anybody much harder up than you are.”

“The law’s agin’ my doin’ it,” said Asaph. “A man can’t marry his sister.”

“Are you thinkin’ of Marietta Himes?” asked Mr. Rooper.

“That’s the one I’m thinkin’ of,” said Asaph. “If you can think of anybody better, I’d like you to mention her.”

Mr. Rooper did not immediately speak. He presently asked, “What do you call money?”

“Well,” said Asaph, with a little hesitation, “considerin’ the circumstances, I should say that in a case like this about fifteen hundred a year, a first-rate house with not a loose shingle on it nor a crack anywhere, a good garden and an orchard, two cows, a piece of meadow-land on the other side of the creek, and all the clothes a woman need have, is money.”

Thomas shrugged his shoulders. “Clothes!” he said. “If she marries she’ll go out of black, and then she’ll have to have new ones, and lots of ’em. That would make a big hole in her money, Asaph.”

The other smiled. “I always knowed you was a far-seein’ feller, Thomas; but it stands to reason that Marietta’s got a lot of clothes that was on hand before she went into mournin’, and she’s not the kind of woman to waste ’em. She’ll be twistin’ ’em about and makin’ ’em over to suit the fashions, and it won’t be like her to be buyin’ new colored goods when she’s got plenty of ’em already.”

There was now another pause in the conversation, and then Mr. Rooper remarked, “Mrs. Himes must be gettin’ on pretty well in years.”

“She’s not a young woman,” said Asaph; “but if she was much younger she wouldn’t have you, and if she was much older you wouldn’t have her. So it strikes me she’s just about the right pint.”

“How old was John Himes when he died?” asked Thomas.

“I don’t exactly know that; but he was a lot older than Marietta.”

Thomas shook his head. “It strikes me,” said he, “that John Himes had a hearty constitution and hadn’t ought to died as soon as he did. He fell away a good deal in the last years of his life.”

“And considerin’ that he died of consumption, he had a right to fall away,” said Asaph. “If what you are drivin’ at, Thomas, is that Marietta isn’t a good housekeeper and hasn’t the right sort of notions of feedin’, look at me. I’ve lived with Marietta just about a year, and in that time I have gained forty-two pounds. Now, of course, I ain’t unreasonable, and don’t mean to say that you would gain forty-two pounds in a year, ’cause you ain’t got the frame and bone to put it on; but it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if you was to gain twenty, or even twenty-five, pounds in eighteen months, anyway; and more than that you ought not to ask, Thomas, considerin’ your height and general build.”

“Isn’t Marietta Himes a good deal of a freethinker?” asked Thomas.

“A what?” cried Asaph. “You mean an infidel?”

“No,” said Thomas, “I don’t charge nobody with nothin’ more than there’s reason for; but they do say that she goes sometimes to one church and sometimes to another, and that if there was a Catholic church in this village she would go to that. And who’s goin’ to say where a woman will turn up when she don’t know her own mind better than that?”

Asaph colored a little. “The place where Marietta will turn up,” said he, warmly, “is on a front seat in the kingdom of heaven; and if the people that talk about her will mend their ways, they’ll see that I am right. You need not trouble yourself about that, Thomas. Marietta Himes is pious to the heel.”