"Do you speak Romany?" she added a little breathlessly.
"No, no. I only picked up words I heard Aunt Cynthy use now and then when
she was in the mood."
"What was the history of Aunt Cynthy?"
"I only know what Charley Long told me. Aunt Cynthy was the daughter of a
Gipsy--they say the only Gipsy in that part of the country at the
time--who used to buy and sell horses, and travel in a big van as
comfortable as a house. The old man suddenly died on the farm of
Charley's uncle. In a month the uncle married the girl. She brought him
thirty thousand dollars."
Fleda knew that this man who had fired her spirit for the first time had
told his childhood story to show her the view he took of her origin; but
she did not like him less for that, though she seemed to feel a chasm
between them still. The new things moving in her were like breezes that
stir the trees, not like the wind turning the windmill which grinds the
corn. She had scarcely yet begun to grind the corn of life.
She did not know where she was going, what she would find, or where the
new trail would lead her. The Past dogged her footsteps, hung round her
like the folds of a garment. Even as she rejected it, it asserted its
power, troubled her, angered her, humiliated her, called to her.
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