"Nora's just the same, as far as I can see. _Our_ Nora says Nora-Andy is distroying Andy with her extravagance. She says the way she dresses, alone, it's no wonder he is always in and out of some get-rich-quick scheme, that'll land him in the poor-house, or worse, if he don't look out. But then, our Nora never did have the appearance of Nora-Andy, I must say that, if I am her own brother. Our Nora is kind of sharp, and she looks it."
"Well, I guess marriage'll bevel some of the edges off'n her, all right, all right," said Martha. "Were you surprised when you heard she was keepin' company with McKenna?"
"Yes, I was. I never thought Nora'd marry now--at her age."
"Nora always wanted to marry, an' when she saw her chance she grabbed it by both horns."
Sam's serious expression relaxed a little. "That sounds as if McKenna was the devil and all of a fellow. He's not that at all, and he certainly ain't much to look at."
"Oh, well," Martha responded, "nobody but her'll have a call to look at'm much, oncet he's married."
"I told her I thought she was taking a risk, throwing up a good place she'd been in, for so many years, parlor-maid, to live out general-housework with a stranger," said Sam. "I thought that was a joke. But it made her mad. She said, 'God knows it's no joke!' She said she had as much of a right to live her life as I have, which of course it's true. She said 'every dog has its day!'"
"True for you. So he has, just like s'ciety ladies. But that ain't to say there'll be anybody'll come. An' I sometimes think there's more dogs, 'n days, anyhow."
Sam looked up. "Say, mother, you ain't down-hearted, are you?"
"No. Why? What'd make me downhearted, I should like to know?"
"I just thought you might be," her husband answered. "I never heard you speak that doubting kind of way before. And, we've no call to think ill of the world, with all the luck that's come to us."
"Certaintly. An' if luck don't stay with us, itself, it won't be because we ain't set her a chair, an' done every mortal thing we know of to make her comfortable. I've no kick comin', nor ever had. I like life all right, the hard part along with the soft part. If you didn't have the one you wouldn't know how to relish the other. But, speakin' o' Nora, I never looked to see her sportin' a 'finity of her own, I can tell you that!"