I told her a few things about her precious son, but she curled her fine, aristocratic lip up, and said, 'Gentlemen never get drunk.' Humph! Gentlemen! That's all she knowed about it.

He got drunk all right, and stayed drunk, too.

So after that, when I tried to keep Bess at home, she slipped away one night; said she was going to church; and she did too; went to the minister's study in a strange church, and got married, her and John; and then they up and off West.
John, he'd sold his watch and his fine diamond stud his ma had give him; and he borrowed some money from some friends of his father's, and he off with three hundred dollars and Bess; and that's all I ever saw more of me Bessie." The poor woman sat down in her chair, and wept into her apron regardless for once of the soap-suds that rolled down her red, wet arms.
"Is my grandmother living yet ?" asked Elizabeth.

She was sorry for this grandmother, but did not know what to say.

She was afraid to comfort her lest she take it for yielding.
"Yes, they say she is," said Mrs.Brady, sitting up with a show of interest.