human
I am glad to see you this fine morning, Mr. Very, she said.
gpt
Did you escape the base designs of those wicked men last night! Viola told me of the plot they had laid to do you harm. I am sorry that my husband and son were away, that they could not help you in your need.
human
Yes, Mrs. LeMonde, thanks to the timely warning that your good daughter sent me, I was able to thwart their evil purposes; and at this moment the ringleaders, Sam Wiles, Zibe Turner, and Harve Davis are in the county jail. I have called personally to thank your daughter for her kindness to me. Is she at home this morning?
gpt
She is, Mr. Very, and if you will excuse me, I will send her into the room.
human
Miss Viola, he said, grasping her hand,
gpt
I have come this morning to thank you for your great kindness in apprising me of Sam Wiles' plot to injure me. I am under a thousand obligations to you for what you did.
human
Do not speak of that, Mr. Very; it was a thing any friend would have done. But tell me whether or not you escaped from their intentions without any injury to yourself.
gpt
Yes, thanks to your promptness, I was able to enlist some friends on my behalf, and with them and some officers of the law we were able to outwit the ruffians and beat them at their own game.
human
I am sure those moonshiners are a menace to our community. They are becoming more and more hardened and reckless. I fear that they will yet do some of us great injury. They doubtless hate papa, who has to sentence them to prison, and they are foes of all order-loving men and women in this region. As to Sam Wiles, I cannot bear to be near him. His very presence repels and frightens me. When he looked at me in church last Sunday night, I shuddered. It seemed as though a venomous snake had put its folds around my neck. Zibe Turner, called the monster dwarf, seems to me to be almost less than human. He combines the ferocity of the tiger, the slyness of the fox, and the shape of a monkey. I am doubly alarmed when he is near.
gpt
This is the natural recoil of virtue away from vice, said Jasper Very.
human
God has given to woman an intuitive sense which, without any long process of reasoning, shows her when a man is bad. It is her protection against his greater strength. It is the Almighty's gift to her, and is beyond the value of rubies. If she will use it, she need never be deceived as to a man's inner character.
gpt
I suppose that is why we women can trust some people from the moment we see them and are suspicions of others from the very first.
human
Undoubtedly it is; and all women should beware of men whose persons, looks, or acts repel that fine discriminating sense within them. Every man should ask himself the question: 'Have I sufficient moral integrity and nobility to pass muster before the eyes of a pure-minded woman!' If he can say 'Yes' to this, he is to be congratulated.
gpt
I am afraid most men are so self-sufficient that they think the other sex is blind to their faults, and will tolerate and cling to them whether or not.
human
They may think so when they reflect only lightly; but when they consider deeply, they know that they can receive the respect of good women only when they are worthy of it. This should stimulate them to be knightly in character--pure, true, gentle, kind, brave, thoroughly good.
gpt
I am glad you have such a high ideal, and trust you will live up to it. If so, you will be my Sir Knight, to lead me to Uncle Pete's cabin. His little girl is down with the measles, and I have promised to act as doctor and nurse for the poor child.
human
I will be happy to act as your humble servant on this errand of mercy. In the meantime I wish to get your consent to go with me in a buggy to Mount Zion meeting-house next Friday. An all-day meeting is to be held there, and I am to preach in the morning. I desire the help of your voice in the singing. We can return in the afternoon. What do you say?
gpt
If mamma gives permission, I shall gladly go; but let us proceed now to the quarters, and you shall comfort the soul of the mother while I try to help the girl's body.