Hester had not to suffer from the sneers and allusions of chaste and offended sisters, but she had to endure worse—the sneers and slights of the whole offended town. The reader remembers how Walton was scandalized at her flirtation, how shocked at her flight; let him then imagine the howl of outraged purity which saluted her repentant return! She, indeed, come back to a town she had disgraced! She to show herself amongst the daughters of respectable people! She to be allowed to wallow in corruption, and then as soon as she found that course led to no good, to return again to her home as if nothing had occurred! The minx!
Mrs. Ruddles hoped her husband would take notice of it from the pulpit: such an example as it was to other girls!
Mrs. Spedley expected to see many imitations of such conduct; it was such a premium on vice!
The post-mistress hoped she was as charitable as most people, but she knew what was due to herself, and as long as that creature remained in Walton, she, the post-mistress, could not think of purchasing anything at her father's shop.
Nor, for that matter, could Mrs. Spedley.
Mrs. Ruddles had never for an instant thought of such a thing. It would be a positive encouragement. Mrs. Ruddles herself had daughters. She knew something, she thought, of what constituted a well-regulated mind. She had no fears for her Arabella, Mary, and Martha Jane; but Mrs. Ruddles knew the ill effects of example.
When Hester appeared in the street, all the women instantly crossed to the other side. If she went into a shop to make a purchase, the shop immediately became empty. Women avoided her as if she were a walking pestilence.
En revanche the men ogled her with effrontery, and even middle-aged rotundities with large families, gave themselves killing airs when in her presence.
The stupid ignorance of men! I declare the older I grow the more amazed I am at the dull, purblind, inexcusable ignorance in which one-half of the human race seems destined to remain with respect to the other half, in spite of all experience. To meet with a man who has not some gross prejudice, founded on the most blundering misconception with regard to the nature of women, and on that point, too, which one would imagine they would best understand, is really one of the rarest occurrences. The vast majority of men never seem to escape from the ideas they form about women at school; and no contradiction in the shape of experience seems to suggest to them that those ideas are essentially false. To hear men—and men of the world too—talk about women, is to hear the strangest absurdities and platitudes you can listen to on any subject; to be let into the secret of their conduct towards women, is only to see the ludicrous results to which such erroneous opinions lead them.
It is a tempting subject, but I am not going to pursue this diatribe. I have an illustration to give instead.