"No, Mandy, no. Thar ain't no woman that's come uv a good family and been raised proper, an' to feel like a nice woman nat'rally does feel, but what'd ruther suffer anything else'n creation than to hev the finger o' scorn pointed at her an' know she or any o' her family'd done anything to desarve it."
Mrs. Powell had been wrought up to a point where her feelings demanded expression, and she continued with an earnestness and sincerity that had the effect of the finest eloquence.
"Even if thar air what yo' call 'extenuatin' circumstances,' you couldn't do this thing without bringin' 'pon yo'self the very hardest trial you could be set to endure. You couldn't be in any company without thinkin' uneasily, 'Would these people be willin' I sh'd be amongst 'em if they knowed how 'twas with me?' In church you'd fancy every wurd the preacher utters p'inted straight at you. And let alone yo'self, what wouldn't you go through thinkin' people wuz slightin' Nellie because o' you?"
"Mother, mother!" Amanda cried, "you mistake me. You're exaggerating the thing. I—I didn't mean divorce!"
"No, you don't mean it now, but it'd come to that. I feel it in my bones," said Mrs. Powell, solemnly.
"Well, now, dear, dear mother, listen to me," her daughter pleaded. "Suppose that—finally, that was the only way to save myself—to—to protect myself from—suppose we were in another place, in a northern city, where nobody knows me?"
"Thar ain't no place on the face of the 'arth so remote but what talk'd find you out."
"Shall we be martyrs, then, to a few old women's tongues? Am I to take the risk of"—Amanda bent and finished her sentence in her mother's ear.
"Honey, shorely ye kin leave that in the good Lord's hands!"