"My dear, my dear, you forget, he has promised to repent and live a different life. If he does, things will be better than we now see them. If he does not change, then we may interfere—perhaps."
"I know, James. But—but—suppose he repents and she becomes his wife, and puts aside all her natural tastes, and the studies she loves, and goes on living with him there on the home place, and he does the best he can—even. Don't you see that her nature is fine and—and so different—even at the best, James, for her it will be death in life. And then there is the terrible chance, after all, that he might go back and be like his father before him, and then what?"
"Well, their lives and destinies are not in our hands; we can only watch out for them and help them."
"James, he has been drunk twice!"
"Yes, yes, Betty, my little tempest, and if he gets drunk twice more, and twice more, she will still forgive him until seventy times seven. We must make her see that unless he keeps his promise to her, she must give him up."
"Of course. I suppose that's all we can do. I—don't know what you'll think of me, Doctor Thryng; I'm a dreadful scold. If James were not an angel—"
"It's perfectly delicious. I would rather hear you scold than—"