Winship's tent, 'I don't know whether I ought to repeat what was told
me in confidence, but the fact is--well--she doesn't like Mr.
Pinkerton very well!'

The other girls, who had not enjoyed the advantages of city life and
travel, looked as dazed as any scandalmonger could have desired.

'Don't like him!' gasped Polly, nearly falling off the stump. 'Why,
she's married to him!'

'Where on earth were you brought up?' snapped Laura. 'What
difference does that make? She can't help it if she doesn't happen
to like her husband, can she? You can't make yourself like anybody,
can you?'

'Well, did she ever like him?' asked Margery; 'for she's only been
married a year or two, and it seems to me it might have lasted that
long if there was anything to begin on.'

'But,' whispered Laura, mysteriously, 'you see Mr. Pinkerton was very
rich and the Dentons very poor. Mr. Denton had just died, leaving
them nothing at all to live on, and poor Jessie would have had to
teach school, or some dreadful thing like that. The thought of it
almost killed her, she is so sensitive and so refined. She never
told me so in so many words, but I am sure she married Mr. Pinkerton
to save her mother from poverty; and I pity her from the bottom of my
heart.'

'I suppose it was noble,' said Bell, in a puzzled tone, 'if she
couldn't think of any other way, but--'