should do so.

"How lovely the valley is!" she said aloud at last; "I don't believe
there's a prettier stretch of road in the whole world than this between
Wallacetown and Hamstead, especially in the spring, when the river is so
high, and everything is looking so fresh and green."

"Fortunate it is pretty; probably it's the only thing we'll have to look
at as long as we live--and certainly it's about all we've seen so far! If
there'd been only you and I, Sally, we could have gone off to school, and
maybe to college, too, but with eight of us to feed and clothe, it's no
wonder that father is dead sunk in debt! Certainly I shan't travel much,"
he added, laughing bitterly, "when he thinks we can't have even one hired
man in the future--and certainly you won't either, if you're fool enough
to marry Fred, and go straight from the frying-pan of one
poverty-stricken home to the fire of another!"

"Oh, Austin, it's wrong of you to talk so! I'm going to be ever so
happy!"

"Wrong! How else do you expect me to talk?--if I talk at all! Doesn't it
mean anything to you that the farm's mortgaged to the very last cent, and
that it doesn't begin to produce what it ought to because we can't beg,
borrow, or steal the money that ought to be put into it? Can you just
shut your eyes to the fact that the house--the finest in the county when
Grandfather Gray built it--is falling to pieces for want of necessary
repairs? And look at our barns and sheds--or don't look at them if you
can help it! Doesn't it gall you to dress as you do, because you have to
turn over most of what you can earn teaching to the family--of course,
you never can earn much, because you haven't had a good enough education