He stands by me,
believing that every one loves me. He's the Rock of Ages--in a storm of
meanness that's driving me mad . . . it will drive me mad."
All evening she sang Scotch ballads to Kennicott, and when she noticed
that he was chewing an unlighted cigar she smiled maternally at his
secret.
She could not escape asking (in the exact words and mental intonations
which a thousand million women, dairy wenches and mischief-making
queens, had used before her, and which a million million women will
know hereafter), "Was it all a horrible mistake, my marrying him?" She
quieted the doubt--without answering it.
IV
Kennicott had taken her north to Lac-qui-Meurt, in the Big Woods. It was
the entrance to a Chippewa Indian reservation, a sandy settlement among
Norway pines on the shore of a huge snow-glaring lake. She had her first
sight of his mother, except the glimpse at the wedding. Mrs. Kennicott
had a hushed and delicate breeding which dignified her woodeny
over-scrubbed cottage with its worn hard cushions in heavy rockers.
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