"Good afternoon, Miss Balfour."
She nodded greeting and cast eyes of derision on him.
"I've been hearing about you. Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"
"Yes, ma'am. What for in particular? There are so many things."
"You're a fine Christian, aren't you?" she scoffed.
"I ain't much of a one. That's a fact," he admitted. "What is it this
time--poker?"
"No, it isn't poker. Worse than that. You've been setting a deplorable
example to the young."
"To young ladies--like Miss Virginia?" he wanted to know.
"No, to young Christians. I don't know what our good deacons will say about
it." She illuminated her severity with a flashing smile. "Don't you know
that the sins of the fathers are to descend upon their children even to the
third and fourth generation? Don't you know that when a man does wrong he
must die punished, and his children and his wife, of course, and that the
proper thing to do is to stand back and thank Heaven we haven't been vile
sinners?"
"Now, don't you begin on that, Miss Virginia," he warned.
"And after the man had disgraced himself and shot you, after all
respectable people had given him an extra kick to let him know he must stay
down and had then turned their backs upon him.
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