"Lord, no, mother.

I wouldn't get a girl without asking you." "I didn't know but you might have seen her over to Ware when you've been there to parties, and not said anything." "I never saw her but that once, mother." Jim struck up "Kinloch of Kinloch," but he played softly, lest by any chance Madelon, aloft in her chamber, might hear.
"She's handsome as a picture," said his mother.

"Who is it that's in prison, Jim ?" "A young man by the name of Gordon." "What for ?" "They think he stabbed his cousin." "My sakes! Do you s'pose he did, Jim ?" "I don't know, mother.

I wasn't there." "I s'pose the young man that did it is this girl's beau, and that's why she's so crazy to get him out." Jim played the merry measure softly, and made no reply.
His mother stood before him quivering with curiosity, which she restrained lest it defeat its own ends.

She had learned early that too impetuous feminine questioning is apt to strike a dead-wall in the masculine mind.
"I didn't quite understand what she meant about a knife," she ventured, with an eager glance at her son.