"Why, now you are so rich, and the wife of a big chief, you must have plenty of friends." "Alas! Macumazahn, I am rich in nothing except trouble, for my husband saves, like the ants for winter.

Why, he even grudged me this poor kaross; and as for friends, he is so jealous that he will not allow me any." "He cannot be jealous of women, Mameena!" "Oh, women! Piff! I do not care for women; they are very unkind to me, because--because--well, perhaps you can guess why, Macumazahn," she answered, glancing at her own reflection in a little travelling looking-glass that hung from the woodwork of the wagon, for I had been using it to brush my hair, and smiled very sweetly.
"At least you have your husband, Mameena, and I thought that perhaps by this time--" She held up her hand.
"My husband! Oh, I would that I had him not, for I hate him, Macumazahn; and as for the rest--never! The truth is that I never cared for any man except one whose name _you_ may chance to remember, Macumazahn." "I suppose you mean Saduko--" I began.
"Tell me, Macumazahn," she inquired innocently, "are white people very stupid?
I ask because you do not seem as clever as you used to be.

Or have you perhaps a bad memory ?" Now I felt myself turning red as the sky behind me, and broke in hurriedly: "If you did not like your husband, Mameena, you should not have married him.

You know you need not unless you wished." "When one has only two thorn bushes to sit on, Macumazahn, one chooses that which seems to have the fewest prickles, to discover sometimes that they are still there in hundreds, although one did not see them.

You know that at length everyone gets tired of standing." "Is that why you have taken to walking, Mameena?
I mean, what are you doing here alone ?" "I?
Oh, I heard that you were passing this way, and came to have a talk with you.