Neither she nor Elmira had said anything about Lawrence Prescott to him; both knew how he would regard the matter.

It seemed to Mrs.Edwards that she had fairly heard him say: "Marry Doctor Prescott's son! You know better, mother." Now she, with her Bible on her knees, shunted rapidly the whole truth behind a half-truth.
"I guess she'll cut full as good a figure in my old silk and her old bonnet with a new ribbon on it as any of the girls," said she.

Then she added, with a skilful swerve from whole truths and half-truths alike: "You'd better hurry, Jerome, or you'll be late to meetin'.
Elmira is out of sight, an' the bell's 'most stopped tollin'." "I am not going this morning," said Jerome.
"Why not, I'd like to know ?" "John Upham sent his oldest boy over here this morning to tell me the baby's sick.

I am going over there and see if I can do anything." "I should think John Upham had better send for Doctor Prescott instead of taking you away from meeting." "You know he won't, mother.

I believe he'd let the baby die before he would.