She could put aside her own tastes for the public good; she could even excuse when this rough comfort was offered to herself.
Darling, labouring behind the cart, made light of the service he rendered.
He said first that the newborn babe must be called after him, and when he learned its sex he gave permission to the ladies to decide between them which should share this honour.
"Shall it be 'darling Susannah' ?" he asked, making gentle his tone as he addressed the stately widow, "or shall it be 'Elvira darling' ?" This time he turned his head with a broader smile toward Elvira's sharp little features.
Susannah felt that her hypersensitive nerves could almost have called his smile a leer; but she looked at the man's broad face, whose lines told of no resources of thought, no great natural capacity for heroism, and yet were furrowed by the sharpness of this persecution.

The face would have been fat had it not been half-starved.

It was pale now under the ill-kempt hair, and the set purpose of helpfulness was stamped upon it.

She took back the word "leer" out of mere respect.

Darling had given away his shoes; he was walking barefoot; he had given away coat and vest also, and the rotund lines of his figure were unpleasantly obvious under the wet shirt, and yet Susannah knew and bowed to the fact that some sick man or little child was wrapped in the garments that were gone.
But Elvira was expressing with hysterical warmth the same sentiments.
"I guess I'll feel it an honour to have my name joined with yours.