yet, Aunt Sophronia . . . ah, I can't bear to think of it!

MRS. MASTERSON. What?

OCEANA. You wouldn't let me tell you what. [In a low voice.] Imagine
my people, my beautiful people, with the soft, brown skins and the big
black eyes, and hair like the curtains of night. They are not savages,
you understand . . . they are gentle and kindly. They ride the rushing
breakers in their frail canoes, they fish and gather fruits in the
forests, they dream in the soft, warm sunshine . . . they are happy,
they are care-free, their whole life is a song. And they are trusting,
hospitable . . . the wonderful white strangers come, and they take
them into their homes, and open their hearts to them. And the
strangers go away and leave them a ghastly disease, that rages like a
fire in their palm-thatched cabins, that sweeps through their villages
like a tornado. And the women's hair falls out . . . they wither up .
. . they're old hags in a year or two. And the babies . . . I've
helped bring them into the world . . . and they had no lips . . .
their noses were gone! They were idiots . . . blind . . .

MRS. MASTERSON. [Wildly.] Anna Talbot! I must beg you to have a little
discretion!

LETITIA. Why should we hear about these things, Oceana?

OCEANA. My dear, it comes from America. The ships came from here!
There was one of them I saw . . . "The Mary Jane, of Boston, Mass."

MRS. MASTERSON. No doubt, among such low men . . . men of vile life .
. . sailors . . .