The Bride

Only one memory in the ten days that followed before her school
began ever stood out clearly and distinctly with Kate. That was
the morning of the day after she married George Holt. She saw
Nancy Ellen and Robert at the gate so she went out to speak with
them. Nancy Ellen was driving, she held the lines and the whip in
her hands. Kate in dull apathy wondered why they seemed so deeply
agitated. Both of them stared at her as if she might be a maniac.

"Is this thing in the morning paper true?" cried Nancy Ellen in a
high, shrill voice that made Kate start in wonder. She did not
take the trouble to evade by asking "what thing?" she merely made
assent with her head.

"You are married to that -- that --" Nancy Ellen choked until she
could not say what.

"It's TIME to stop, since I am married to him," said Kate,
gravely.

"You rushed in and married him without giving Robert time to find
out and tell you what everybody knows about him?" demanded Nancy
Ellen.

"I married him for what I knew about him myself," said Kate. "We
shall do very well."

"Do well!" cried Nancy. "Do well! You'll be hungry and in rags
the rest of your life!"

"Don't, Nancy Ellen, don't!" plead Robert. "This is Kate's
affair, wait until you hear what she has to say before you go
further."

"I don't care what she has to say!" cried Nancy Ellen. "I'm
saying my say right now. This is a disgrace to the whole Bates
family. We may not be much, but there isn't a lazy, gambling,
drunken loafer among us, and there won't be so far as I'm
concerned."