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Updated: June 9, 2025
"I am sure I have reason to. Grandmother Parker was a good woman if ever there was one, and she was bewitched. And would it have said in the Bible 'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live, if there had not been any?" "They were telling stories at Madam Royall's one day. And sometime Uncle Winthrop is going to take us all to Marblehead, where Mammy Redd lived.
In her exalted mood she did not greatly care whether he was waiting for her or not: she seemed to be floating high over life, on a great cloud of misery beneath which every-day realities had dwindled to mere specks in space. But the porch was empty, Mr. Royall's hat hung on its peg in the passage, and the kitchen lamp had been left to light her to bed. She took it and went up.
Royall's was the only house where the young man could have been offered a decent hospitality. There had been nothing, therefore, in the outward course of events to raise in Charity's breast the hopes with which it trembled.
Royall's imperturbable indifference seemed to relegate him to the domain of unreality. As she sat at work, she tried to shake off her disappointment at Harney's non-appearing. Some trifling incident had probably kept him from joining them at midday; but she was sure he must be eager to see her again, and that he would not want to wait till they met at supper, between Mr. Royall and Verena.
After another interval the lady on the bench stood up, and taking her hand put it in Mr. Royall's. It lay enclosed in his strong palm and she felt a ring that was too big for her being slipped on her thin finger. She understood then that she was married....
Therefore, when Miss Hatchard sent for her a day or two later, to talk of a school at Nettleton, and to say that this time a friend of hers would "make the necessary arrangements," Charity cut her short with the announcement that she had decided not to leave North Dormer. Miss Hatchard reasoned with her kindly, but to no purpose; she simply repeated: "I guess Mr. Royall's too lonesome."
Royall's "habits": had seen him, as she went up to bed, sitting morosely in his office, a bottle at his elbow; or coming home, heavy and quarrelsome, from his business expeditions to Hepburn or Springfield; but the idea of his associating himself publicly with a band of disreputable girls and bar-room loafers was new and dreadful to her.
"Read Betty's postscript." Then she ran out of the room and had a good cry by herself, though why anyone should want to cry over such joyful news she could not quite understand. Afterward she tied on her hat and ran over to Madam Royall's and then up to Sudbury Street. For in those days people were wont to say to their neighbors, "Come, rejoice with me!"
In spite of everything and in spite even of Miss Hatchard lawyer Royall ruled in North Dormer; and Charity ruled in lawyer Royall's house. She had never put it to herself in those terms; but she knew her power, knew what it was made of, and hated it. Confusedly, the young man in the library had made her feel for the first time what might be the sweetness of dependence.
She'll take you home," he said; and he added, raising his voice to speak to the old woman: "It's the girl from lawyer Royall's Mary's girl... you remember...." The woman nodded and raised her sad old eyes to Charity's. When Mr.
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