Very dirty children ran about crying, ugly, old women
knitted, mongrel dogs and cats barked and yelped and rolled in the mud.
Bits of orange-peel and old cabbage and other refuse food lay piled near
the doors. There were, to be sure, young girls with dark eyes, plaiting
straw, and the very dirt heaps had a picturesque sort of air. An artist
might linger a moment to look, but never to enter. Yet it was here that
Mae must enter. This was her new home. The neighbors came crowding about
curiously, and she was hurried into the little hut that seemed as if
it were carved roughly from some big garlic, probably by taking out the
heart of it for dinner. Mae hardly comprehended the situation at first,
but when she began to realize that this was a substitute for sea breeze,
and that the coarse clipped patois (which sounded worse in the mass
than when it fell from Lisetta's lips alone) was in place of the flowing
melody of speech she had longed for, she grew sick at heart. The folly,
the dreadfulness of what she had done, swept over her like a flood, and
with it came dreadful fear.
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