“Well, now, what I was a-goin’ to say was, Ma’am, supposin’ if he’d of died when I was, say, young as ye air. Do ye suppose I’d of stayed single all of my life? I don’t say if I would or I wouldn’t, but I’ve knowed wimmern to merry four or five times, like enough—I mought of merried sever’l times, come need fer’t. But thank God I didn’t haveter.
“Didn’t ye never have no sweethearts afore ye was merried, Ma’am?” she went on in her own fashion, her inquisitiveness now growing under the reticence of the other.
“Don’t all girls?” said Marcia Haddon soberly.
“Most has,” said the old dame, “mostly, yes. All, ye mought say, that’s as purty as ye was. An’ as I was sayin’, ye’re a-gittin’ purtier right along. Ye’ll be a right peart-lookin’ widder afore long. Well, like I was sayin’, ye mought of merried ary one of ‘em if ye hadn’t of merried the man ye did.”
“It never came up for discussion in my mind, Granny,” said Marcia Haddon with dignity.
“Huh! Thar’s most always two or three men in ary womern’s life,” responded Granny Williams calmly. “Thar was two or three in mine. Like enough I’d of merried one of ‘em if I hadn’t of merried Henry like I done. I been too busy to think about sich matters sence. But, just so long as a woman is foot-loose like, chances air she mought merry two or three men, or even sever’l, like I said.”
Marcia Haddon made no response to this matter-of-fact reasoning, but her ancient companion continued in her monologue.
“Yes,” she chuckled, “that’s so. An’ yit, if ever a man admits to his wife that he has ever saw more’n one womern in all his borned life, she’ll raise hell with him! Now, Davy——”
Marcia Haddon suddenly pulled up her mule an’ hastened on, but relentlessly the old woman resumed when she had come alongside.
“I was sayin’ about Davy—he were merried onlucky. It jest happened that way. An’ now she’s got her a divorce from him. That’s a awful thing.”