reading after dinner, and Grandpa looked up from his paper and said
something about a woman that was sentenced to be hanged and how a
whole lot of men were writing letters protesting against having a
woman hanged; but there were only one or two letters from women. And
Grandpa said that only went to prove how much more lacking in a sense
of fitness of things women were than men. And he was just going to say
more when Aunt Hattie bristled up and tossed her chin, and said, real
indignantly:

"A sense of fitness of things, indeed! Oh, yes, that's all very well
to say. There are plenty of men, no doubt, who are shocked beyond
anything at the idea of hanging a woman; but those same men will think
nothing of going straight home and making life for some other woman so
absolutely miserable that she'd think hanging would be a lucky escape
from something worse."

"Harriet!" exclaimed Grandpa in a shocked voice.

"Well, I mean it!" declared Aunt Hattie emphatically. "Look at poor
Madge here, and that wretch of a husband of hers!"

And just here is where the funny thing happened. Mother bristled
up--_Mother_--and even more than Aunt Hattie had. She turned red and
then white, and her eyes blazed.

"That will do, Hattie, please, in my presence," she said, very cold,
like ice. "Dr. Anderson is not a wretch at all. He is an honorable,
scholarly gentleman. Without doubt he meant to be kind and
considerate. He simply did not understand me. We weren't suited to
each other. That's all."