, and Mr. Mullen himself in the pulpit couldn't convince me that
it don't take two to make an impropriety."

"True, true," they repeated, belying themselves under coercion in the
accents of the chorus in a Greek drama. "'Tis true, ma'am, as you speak
it."

"Thar were some mean enough to side against the po' innocent from the
hour of her birth," she continued oracularly, while she looked severely
at Solomon, who nodded in response, "an' these same folks have been
preachin' over her an' pintin' at her ever sence she larned to crawl out
of the cradle. But thar never was a kinder heart or a quicker hand in
trouble than Molly's, an' if she did play fast and loose with the men,
was it any worse, I'd like to know, than they deserve?"

"Thar's truth in what you say, ma'am, thar's a deal of truth in it,"
they agreed, nodding dejected craven heads over their pipes. Like all
born politicians, their eye was for the main chance rather than for
the argument, and they found it easier to forswear a conviction than to
forego a comfort.

"Well, I'm roastin' a young possum along with the squirrel stew, so
you'd better work up an appetite," she said in a mollified tone at at
the end of her lecture, as though she were desirous of infusing a more
ardent spirit into them before her departure.

When the barn door closed behind her, a sigh of relief, half stifled
through fear of detection, passed round the group.

"Thar goes a woman in a thousand," observed old Adam, edging nearer the
bin.

"In a million--let's make it a million," urged Solomon Hatch.

"If they were all like that the world would be different, Mr.
Doolittle," remarked Jim Halloween.

"Ah, yes, it would be different," agreed old Adam, and he sighed again.

"Thar'd be strict walkin' among us, I reckon," said his son.

"An' a chalk line the same as we draw for the sex," added Solomon Hatch.

"Sin would be scarce then an' life earnest," remarked William Ming,
who had alluded to Betsey in the most distant terms ever since he had
married her.

"We'd abide by the letter like the women, not by the spirit as we do,"
reflected Solomon.

They sighed for the third time more heavily, and the dried husks on the
floor around the bin rattled as though a strong wind had entered.

"But she's one in a million, Mr. Doolittle," protested Solomon, after a
pause, and his tone had grown cheerful.

"Yes, I reckon it's a million. Thar ain't mo' than one in a million of
that rare sort,