terrible.

She had faintings and hysterics, and said she couldn't live without him,
though everybody in Yorkburg knew she could, and easy enough. He without
her, too, had she gone first. She had asthma and an outbreaking temper,
and he drank.

Mrs. Mosby--she's the doctor's wife--said she didn't blame him. No man
could stand Mrs. Gaines all the time without something to help, and
everybody hoped when he got so ill that he'd die and have a little rest.
But he didn't. He got better.

Mrs. Gaines was so surprised she was downright disagreeable about it,
and how he stood it was a wonder. He didn't long, for the next summer he
was dead sure enough, and Mrs. Gaines put on the longest crêpe veil ever
seen in the South, she said. It touched the hem of her skirt in front
and behind; but she cut it in half after everybody had seen it often
enough to know how long it was.

If Augustus Gaines thought she was going to ruin her eyes and choke her
lungs by wearing unhealthy crêpe over her face he thought wrong, she
said, and in a few months it was gone and she was as gay as a girl.
She's what they call a character, Mrs. Gaines is.

I don't want to be like her, and I don't expect to do any groaning over
leaving Yorkburg. I want to live with Uncle Parke and Miss Katherine,
and I'm going to. But it's strange how many happy things hurt.