"Wait till I get the cawn-poppah and I'll tell you."
She was back in a moment with the popper and several ears of corn which she divided with Rob, and started to shell into the big dish which she placed on the floor between them. She shelled in silence a moment or two.
"It's this wintah in society that's given me that opinion," she said finally. "The view I've had of it through my Hildegarde mirror. The knights have come riding, lots of them, and maybe among them I might have found my prince in disguise, but the shadows of the world blurred everything. Out heah in the country I'd grown up believing that it's a kind, honest old world. I'd seen only its good side. I took my conception of married life from mothah and Papa Jack, Doctah Shelby and Aunt Alicia, and yoah fathah and mothah. They made me think that marriage is a great strong sanctuary, built on a rock that no storm can hurt and no trouble move. But this wintah I found that that kind of marriage has grown out of fashion. It's something to jest about, and it's a mattah of scandal and divorce and unhappiness. Sometimes it made me heart-sick, the tales I heard and the things I saw. I came to little Mary Ware's conclusion, that it's safah to be an old maid."
"SHE POURED THE CORN INTO THE POPPER AND BEGAN TO SHAKE IT OVER THE RED COALS."
Drawing a low stool nearer the fire, she poured the corn into the popper and began to shake it over the red coals.
"It's dreadful to be disillusioned," said Rob, smiling at her serious face. "That's one reason why I keep so 'far from the madding crowd.' My old friends have been good about remembering me with invitations and I've been sorely tempted to accept some of them just to see what kind of a show was going on. But I couldn't accept one and refuse another and I couldn't afford to go in wholesale; carriages and flowers and the bummed up feeling that follows make it too expensive for a poor man like me. It's nearly over now, I suppose, anyway."
"Yes, the fancy dress ball on Valentine's night will be the last big thing befoah Lent."
"Who is to be your escort?"
"Mistah Whitlow, probably. He hasn't asked me yet, but he saw Aunt Jane this mawning and told her not to let me make any engagement, for he was coming to ask me as soon as I got back to town Monday."