answered, in an injured tone:

"Oh, well, if you like to be singled out in that manner, and held up
as an example before the whole congregation, I'm sure you're welcome
to the enjoyment; but as for me, I think it is just an insult."

"Stuff and nonsense!" echoed the doctor. "How you women can work
yourselves into a riot over nothing. Now you know he didn't say any
more than he has a dozen times before. In fact, he was rather mild on
that point, I thought; and I concluded he considered he had said
about all there was to be said in that line, and might as well slip
it over. There wasn't a personal sentence in it, anyhow. The doctor
is a gentleman. More than that, I don't believe he knows we had a
whist party. If he set out to keep track of all the _parties_ there
are in his congregation it would make a busy life for him. Your
conscience must have reproached you, Maria."

"Well, some people are less sensitive than others, I suppose. I
_know_ men who wouldn't like to have their wives talked about as
freely as yours was from the pulpit this morning. I tell you, Dr.
Matthews, that he meant _me_, and I know it, and I don't mean to
stand it, if you do."

"How will you help it?" the doctor asked, and he laughed outright.
It did seem ridiculously funny to him. "A tempest in a thimble," he
called it. His wife was given to having them.

"What will you do about it? Fight him, or what? It's a free country,
and the man has a right to his opinions, even if _you_ don't agree
with him. Better hush up, Maria. I don't believe in duels, and they