“If you ever came to see me now, you would know who my friends are, Mr. Tarbox.”
“Would you be my friend again, if I came, Miss Belle?”
“Again? I have always been so, — always, Bill.”
“Well, then, something more than my friend, — now that I am trying to be worthy of more, Belle?”
“What more can I be?” she said, softly.
“My wife.”
She curved to the right. He followed. To the left. He was not to be shaken off.
“Will you promise me not to say walves instead of valves, Bill?” she said, looking pretty and saucy as could be. “I know, to say W for V is fashionable in the iron business; but I don’t like it.”
“What a thing a woman is to dodge!” says Bill. “Suppose I told you that men brought up inside of boilers, hammering on the inside against twenty hammering like Wulcans on the outside, get their ears so dumfounded that they can’t tell whether they are saying valves or walves, wice or virtue, — suppose I told you that, — what would you say, Belle?”
“Perhaps I’d say that you pronounce virtue so well, and act it so sincerely, that I can’t make any objection to your other words. If you’d asked me to be your vife, Bill, I might have said I didn’t understand; but wife I do understand, and I say —”
