Happily Miss Sally thought more of her present mission than of the past errors of her people.

The faster she walked the more vividly she pictured the possible complications of this meeting.

She knew the dull, mean nature of her aunt, and the utter hopelessness of all appeal to anything but her selfish cupidity, and saw in this fatuous essay of Corbin only an aggravation of her worst instincts.

Even the dead body of her son would not only whet her appetite for pecuniary vengeance, but give it plausibility in the eyes of their emotional but ignorant neighbors.

She had still less to hope from Julia Jeffcourt's more honest and human indignation but equally bigoted and prejudiced intelligence.
It is true they were only women, and she ought to have no fear of that physical revenge which Julia had spoken of, but she reflected that Miss Jeffcourt's unmistakable beauty, and what was believed to be a "truly Southern spirit," had gained her many admirers who might easily take her wrongs upon their shoulders.