I don't hold with women workin' unless they're obliged to." "But I'm obliged to.

How on earth could I take care of the children if I didn't work ?" For a minute there was an austere silence while Miss Polly reflected grimly that Gabriella Mary--she thought of her as "Gabriella Mary" in moments of disapprobation"-- was gettin' almost as set as her ma." "You could marry," she said flatly at last, stopping to press down the hem she had turned with the blunted nail of her thumb.

"Of course your ma would be dead against it, but there ain't any reason in the world why you shouldn't go back home and marry Arthur Peyton, as you ought to have done seventeen years ago." Though Gabriella laughed in reply, there was no merriment in the sound, and a look of sadness crept into the eyes she turned away from the sharp gaze of the little seamstress.
"You've forgotten that I haven't seen him for seventeen years," she answered.
"That don't make any difference in his sort, and you know it.

He ain't ever married anybody else, and he ain't goin' to.

The faithfulness that ought to be spread over the whole sex gets stored up in a few, and he's one of 'em." "He has never written to me.