It would be a good thing for the shop if one of ye was married.' Philip reddened.

Often as the idea of marriage had come into his mind, this was the first time it had been gravely suggested to him by another.

But he replied quietly enough.
'I don't think Hester Rose has any thought of matrimony.' 'To be sure not; it is for thee, or for William Coulson, to make her think.

She, may-be, remembers enough of her mother's life with her father to make her slow to think on such things.

But it's in her to think on matrimony; it's in all of us.' 'Alice's husband was dead before I knew her,' said Philip, rather evading the main subject.
'It was a mercy when he were taken.