"Then she'll have to go to her and say it." Mrs. Webb looked up, and for a moment her fingers stopped their rapid sewing. "You don't suppose Miss Gibbie is going to Mrs. Deford's just because Mrs. Deford sent for her, do you? If Laura knows what's good for her, and what she's doing, she will let Miss Gibbie alone."
"But that's what she don't know." Miss Lizzie Bettie Pryor's voice was as blunt as usual. "If ever there was a wild woman it's Laura Deford this minute. I've been with her all the morning, and she don't know salt from seaweed. She sent for John Maxwell and says he told her not to dare call Mary Cary's name in his presence, and that he never expects to marry any woman on earth."
"I don't believe it!" Mrs. Moon sat upright. "Mrs. Deford must be insane."
"She is." Miss Lizzie Bettie bit off a strand of cotton. "She'll cool down after a while, but just at present she don't know what she's talking about. If ever a woman wanted a man for a son-in-law she wanted John Maxwell. The flesh-pots of his Egypt are after her heart. I feel sorry for her, but she had no business behaving as she's done for months past."
"I don't wonder John helped the runaways." Mrs. Corbin threaded her needle at arm's-length. "Safety lay in flight of some sort, and as he will never fly as long as Mary Cary is here, the sensible thing was to help shoo Lily off. Mrs. Deford will have to let him alone now. Poor thing! It does seem strange how the cup that's bitterest is the one we always have to drink. I don't suppose any of us would scramble or push to get in the Pugh family, but Mr. Corbin says young Pugh is one of the finest young men in town, and he thinks Lily is lucky to get him. Of course, Mr. Corbin's opinion is just a man's, but Lily's best friend couldn't think she had any more sense than she needed, and she's the kind that fades before thirty. She's got a pretty complexion and lovely hair, but her nose—A girl with a nose like Lily's ought to be thankful to marry anybody, Mr. Corbin says."
"That's what I say!" Mrs. Tate's right foot was held out to the blazing coals, and her hands held tightly the rumpled shirt. "I tell you we have to follow the fashion, and it's the fashion now to forget what we used to remember. The Pughs certainly are plain, and that oldest girl, the fat, married one, must be hard to swallow, but they say that young one, Kitty I believe is her name, is going to marry Jim McFarlane. The McFarlanes are as good as the Defords any day, if Jim is as lazy and good-for-nothing as he's good-looking. Jim is my cousin, and I ought to know."
"So you will be connected with the Pughs also?" Mrs. Pryor turned, scissors in hand, and looked significantly at Mrs. Tate. "The Pughs will believe themselves in society after a while; will try, no doubt, to find a family tree."
"It could be a horse-chestnut." Mrs. Tate nodded at Mrs. Pryor. I always did say a person wasn't responsible for their kin, and pride and shame in them don't speak much for yourself. I'm glad Aylette didn't marry Billy Pugh, but if she had I wouldn't be ranting around like Laura Deford is doing this minute. I guess I'd have given her a piece of my mind, and gone out and gotten her some wedding clothes. A girl certainly ought to have pretty things when she gets married, even if you don't think much of her taste in men. When Aylette was married I ran more ribbon in her clothes—pink and blue and lavender. I told her she might be a widow, and it was well to be ready. She didn't want lavender, but I love it, and I would put some in. I don't suppose a girl ever does marry just the kind of man her mother would like her to. I wouldn't want Aylette to know it, but I never have understood what she saw in Mr. Penhurst to fall in love with. He's from Worcester, Massachusetts." Mrs. Tate's hand went up and her eyes rolled ceilingward. "What he thinks of this part of the world wouldn't do to be written out!"
"And what we think of his wouldn't, either!" Miss Lizzie Bettie Pryor's head nodded so emphatically at Mrs. Tate that the latter sat down. "All I ask of people from his section of the world is to stay away from ours. I wish I could make a law forbidding people north of Mason and Dixon's line to come to Yorkburg. We don't want to know anything about them—what they think or what they say or what they do. If I could I'd put a glass top on Yorkburg and keep it always as the one spot in Virginia that remembers the past and is true to it."
"I'm mighty glad you can't make laws or put on glass tops." Mrs. Moon smiled good-naturedly. "If it wasn't for the people north of Mason and Dixon's line the woolen-mills would have to close and there'd be no butter for my bread. A good many other things would be affected also, and Yorkburg would waste away were it not for your unloved friends beyond the line. Certainly the inn would have to close, and the Colonial Arms and—"