Like the majority of men who have risen to comparative comfort out of bitter poverty, he had at the same time a profound contempt and an inordinate respect for the tangible fact of money--a contempt for the mere value of the dollar and a respect for the ability to take stands of which that mystic figure was the symbol.

Sarah's hard common sense, overlaid as it was by an embroidery of sentiments and emotions, still constituted the basic quality in his character, and Sarah would have been the last woman in the world to think lightly of renouncing--or of inviting another to renounce--an income of ten thousand dollars a year.

_He_ might dream that love would bring happiness, but she was reasonably assured that money would bring comfort.

Between the dream and the assurance there would have been, in Sarah's mind at least, small room left for choice.

He had known few women, and for one dreadful minute he asked himself, passionately, if Molly and his mother could be alike?
Unconsciously to himself his voice when he spoke again had lost its ring of conviction.
"Perhaps I may see her later ?" he repeated.
"The funeral will be to-morrow.