"Insulted you, Cunnil? The ongrateful huzzy! Can't you insult her back? She never dared to disobey me. Her pride once broke down, she'll be like other gals, I reckon."
"That's true, no doubt. But, Patty, haven't you a little remorse about it, considering she's your grandchild?"
"My mother had none fur me, honey," the old woman chuckled, familiarly.
"What is that story I have heard something of, about your origin, Patty?"
"I don't know no more about it, Cunnil, than a pore, ignorant gal would, you know. I've hearn my grandfather was a lord. A gypsy woman enticed his son and he married her. His father drove him from his door, an' his wife fetched him on her money to Canady, where she went into the smugglin' business at St. John's, half-way between Montreal and the United States."
"And he was hanged there for assassinating a friend who detected him?"
"They says so, honey. Anyhow, he was hanged. We gals was beautiful. Says mother: 'It's a hard world, but don't let it beat you, gals! Marry ef you kin. Anyway, you must live, and you can't live off of women.' I married a Delaware man, and so I quit bein' Martha Hanley and became Patty Cannon."[7]
"And what a career you have led, Aunt Patty! Lived anywhere but in this old pocket between the bays, you would have had the reputation of Captain Kidd. Tell me now, conservatively, was not your own helpless childhood the cause of your mistakes, and does it never make you feel for other sparrow-birds like Hulda?"
The black-haired woman, with a certain evil-thinking, like one reflected upon harshly, finally clapped her bold black eyes on McLane's, and replied, chuckling:
"I don't know as it do, Cunnil. Before my mother pinted the way, I loved the men. I loved 'em to be bad. Mommy tuk us as we drifted. An' as fur Huldy yer, her mother throws her onto me; she's not like the Cannons an' Johnsons; she's full of pride, and," with an oath, "let it be tuk out of her! Will you pay my price?"