"Perhaps I didn't, but that says nothing for others. We must bear up as best we can."
One word led to another, and very soon Esther was telling her mother the whole tale of her misfortune—all about William, the sweepstakes, the ball at the Shoreham Gardens, the walks about the farm and hillside.
"Service is no place for a girl who wants to live as we used to live when father was alive—no service that I've seen. I see that plain enough. Mistress was one of the Brethren like ourselves, and she had to put up with betting and drinking and dancing, and never a thought of the Lord. There was no standing out against it. They call you Creeping Jesus if you say your prayers, and you can't say them with a girl laughing or singing behind your back, so you think you'll say them to yourself in bed, but sleep comes sooner than you expect, and so you slips out of the habit. Then the drinking. We was brought up teetotal, but they're always pressing it upon you, and to please him I said I would drink the 'orse's 'ealth. That's how it began…. You don't know what it is, mother; you only knew God-fearing men until you married him. We aren't all good like you, mother. But I thought no harm, indeed I didn't."
"A girl can't know what a man is thinking of, and we takes the worst for the best."
"I don't say that I was altogether blameless but—"
"You didn't know he was that bad."
Esther hesitated.
"I knew he was like other men. But he told me—he promised me he'd marry me."
Mrs. Saunders did not answer, and Esther said, "You don't believe I'm speaking the truth."
"Yes, I do, dearie. I was only thinking. You're my daughter; no mother had a better daughter. There never was a better girl in this world."