My mother would never suffer him to ponder the subject if she could help it.
"Oh Richard!" exclaimed she, on one occasion, "if you would but dismiss such gloomy subjects from your mind, you would live as long as any of us—at least you would live to see the girls married, and yourself a happy grandfather with a canty old dame for your companion."
My mother laughed, and so did my father, but his laugh soon perished in a dreary sigh.
"Them married—poor penniless things!" said he, "who will take them I wonder!"
"Why nobody shall, that isn't thankful for them.—Wasn't I penniless when you took me? and you pretended, at least, to be vastly pleased with your acquisition.—But it's no matter whether they get married or not; we can devise a thousand honest ways of making a livelihood; and I wonder Richard, you can think of bothering your head about our poverty in case of your death, as if that would be anything compared with the calamity of losing you—an affliction that, you well know, would swallow up all others, and which you ought to do your utmost to preserve us from; and there is nothing like a cheerful mind for keeping the body in health."
