"Do you mean a motto?"
"I mean what you'd call a marrtyrr. But I won't make you one. I'll release you from our engagement, and you can go back to Liddy Sovey. I understand you've been rushing her very hahd. And you needn't take me home. I'll get back by the gahden pahth."
She rose and swept into the house, followed by her despairing swain.
Orson and Tudie eavesdropped in silence. Tudie was full of scorn. Amélie's arguments were piffle or worse to her, and her willingness to undergo "martyrdom" for them was the most arrant pigheadedness, as the martyrdom of alien creeds usually is.
Orson, the alien, was full of amazement. Here was a nice young man in love with a beautiful young woman. He had been devoted for years, and now, because she had slightly altered her habits in one vowel and on consonant, their love was curdled.
IV
Greater wars have begun from less causes and been waged more fiercely. They say that an avalanche can be brought down from a mountain by a whispered word. Small wonder, then, that the murmur of a vowel and the murder of a consonant should precipitate upon the town of Carthage the stored-up snows of tradition. Business was dull in the village and any excitement was welcome. Before Emma's return there had been a certain slight interest in pronunciation.
Orson Carver had for a time stimulated amusement by his droll talk. He had been suspected for some time of being an impostor because he spoke of his university as "Havvad." The Carthaginians did not expect him to call it "Harrvarrd," as it was spelled, but they had always understood that true graduates called it "Hawvawd," and local humorists won much laughter by calling it "Haw-haw-vawd." Orson had bewildered them further by a sort of cockneyism of misappropriated letters. He used the flat "a" in words where Carthaginians used the soft, as in his own name and his university's. He saved up the "r" that he dropped from its rightful place and put it on where it did not belong, as in "idear." He had provoked roars of laughter one evening when a practical joker requested him to read a list of the books of the Bible, and he had mentioned "Numbas, Joshuar, Ezrar, Nehemiar, Estha, Provubbs, Isaiar, Jeremiar."
Eventually he was eclipsed by another young man sent to a post in the C., T. & R. Railroad by an ambitious parent—Jefferson Digney, of Yale. Digney, born and raised in Virginia and removed to Georgia, had taken his accent to New Haven and taken it away with him unsullied. His Southern speech had given Carthage acute joy for a while.
Arthur Litton had commented once on the contrast between Orson and Jefferson. "Neither of you can pronounce the name of his State," said Arthur. "He calls it 'Jawja' and you call it 'Jahjar.'"