profession."

"No, no, sir! Then you would soon be finding some one else to bother,
perhaps some blonde, sentimental, intellectual 'friend.' What is the use
of turning a good-natured little thing like me into a hateful dog in the
manger? I am not naturally able to appreciate you, but if you were
_mine_, I should snarl and bark and bite at any other woman who was."

Jack liked this unchristian sentiment very much indeed. He squeezed
Kitty's hand and looked so gratefully into her bright face that she was
forced to pretend he had ruined her glove.

"I'll buy you boxes full, Kitty; and, darling, I am not very poor; I am
quite sure I could make plenty of money for you."

"Jack, I did not want to speak about money; because, if a girl does not
go into raptures about being willing to live on crusts and dress in
calicos for love, people say she's mercenary. Well, then, I am
mercenary. I want silk dresses and decent dinners and matinees, and I'm
fond of having things regular; it's a habit of mine to like them all the
time. Now I know literary people have spasms of riches, and then spasms
of poverty. Artists are just the same. I have tried poverty
occasionally, and found its uses less desirable than some people tell us
they are."

"Have you decided yet whom and what you will marry, Kitty?"

"No sarcasm, Jack. I shall marry the first good honest fellow that
loves me and has a steady business, and who will not take me every
summer to see views."