Roxy waited until they had struck into the woods path, and then looked guardedly behind her.
“Mary French is the youngest one. She was sealed to the Prophet only two years ago; and last winter she went travelling with him, and we heard she dressed in men's clothes and acted as his secretary.”
“But why did she do that when she was his wife according to your religion?”
“I don't know,” responded Roxy, mysteriously. “The Gentiles on the mainland are very hard on us.”
They followed the track between fragrant grapevine and hickory, and the girl bred to respect polygamy inquired—
“Do you feel afraid of the Prophet, Cousin Emeline?”
“No, I don't,” retorted the girl bred to abhor it.
“Sometimes I do. He makes people do just what he wants them to. Mary French was a Gentile's daughter, the proudest girl that ever stepped in St. James. She didn't live on the island; she came here to visit. And he got her. What's the matter, Cousin Emeline?”
“Some one trod on my grave; I shivered. Cousin Roxy, I want to ask you a plain question. Do you like a man's having more than one wife?”
“No, I don't. And father doesn't either. But he was obliged to marry again, or get into trouble with the other elders. And Aunt Mahala is very good about the house, and minds mother. The revelation may be plain enough, but I am not the kind of a girl,” declared Roxy, daringly, as one might blaspheme, “that cares a straw for the revelation.”