“Did you notice her face, girls?” she asked. “It was as white as death itself. She looked as if she was about to faint. It’s all this talk about Floyd. Well, they were friends. I tried to get her to stop receiving his attentions, but she thought she knew better. Well, he has got his deserts, I reckon.”
“And all on account of the talk about that silly Minnie Wade!” cried Kitty Welborn, “when you know as well as I do, Mrs. Porter, that Thad Pelham—” The speaker glanced at Nathan Porter and paused.
“Oh, you needn’t let up on yore hen-cackle on my account,” that blunt worthy made haste to say. “I’ll go out an’ look at my new hogs. You gals are out fer a day o’ pleasure, an’ I wouldn’t interfere with the workin’ of yore jaws fer a purty.”
Mrs. Porter didn’t remain to hear Kitty Welborn finish her observation, but followed her daughter.
In the next room, which was the dining-room, an old woman sat at a window. She was dressed in dingy black calico, her snowy hair brushed smoothly down over a white wrinkled brow, and was fanning herself slowly with a turkey-feather fan. She had Mrs. Porter’s features and thinness of frame.
“Mother,” Mrs. Porter said, pausing before her, “didn’t Cynthia come in here just now?”
“Yes, she did,” replied the old woman. “She did. And I just want to know, Mandy, what you all have been saying to her? I want to know, I say?”
“We haven’t been saying anything to her as I know of,” said the farmer’s wife in slow, studious surprise.
“I know you have, I say, I know you have!” The withered hand holding the fan quivered in excitement. “I know you have, for I can always tell when that poor child is worried. I heard a little of it, too, but not all. I heard them mention Hillhouse’s name. I tell you, I am not going to sit still and let a whole pack of addle-pated women tease as good a girl as Cynthia is plumb to death.”
“I don’t think they were troubling her,” Mrs. Porter said, her face drawn in thought, her mind elsewhere.