Hannah ought not to throw herself away on Bud Means.

Men of some culture always play their conceit off against their consciences.

To a man of literary habits it usually seems to be a great boon that he confers on a woman when he gives her his love.

Reasoning thus, Ralph had fixed his resolution, and if the night had been shorter, or sleep possible, the color of his life might have been changed.
But some time along in the tedious hours came the memory of his childhood, the words of his mother, the old Bible stories, the aspiration after nobility of spirit, the solemn resolutions to be true to his conscience.

These angels of the memory came flocking back before the animal, the bull-doggedness, had "set," as workers in plaster say.
He remembered the story of David and Nathan, and it seemed to him that he, with all his abilities and ambitions and prospects, was about to rob Bud of the one ewe-lamb, the only thing he had to rejoice in in his life.