19.  I cannot pass over this part of my story without bringing forward Mrs. Armistead, the town cynic, who constituted herself one of Sylvia’s sources of information in the crisis.  Mrs. Sallie Ann Armistead was the mother of two boys with whom Sylvia, as a child, had insisted upon playing, in spite of the protests of the family.  “Wha’ fo’ you go wi’ dem Armistead chillun, Mi’ Sylvia?” would cry Aunt Mandy, the cook.  “Doan’ you know they granddaddy done pick cottin in de fiel’ ‘long o’ me?” But while her father was picking cotton, Sallie Ann had looked after her complexion and her figure, and had married a rising young merchant.  Now he was the wealthy proprietor of a chain of “nigger stores,” and his wife was the possessor of the most dreaded tongue in Castleman County.

She was a person who, if she had been born a duchess, would have made a reputation in history; the one woman in the county who had a mind and was not afraid to have it known.  She used all the tricks of a duchess—­lorgnettes, for example, with which she stared people into a state of fright.  She did not dare try anything like that on the Castlemans, of course, but woe to the little people who crossed her path!  She had an eye that sought out every human weakness, and such a wit that even her victims were fascinated.  One of the legends about her told how her dearest foe, a dashing young matron, had died, and all the friends had gathered with their floral tributes.  Sallie Ann went in to review the remains, and when she came out a sentimental voice inquired:  “And how does our poor Ruth look?”

“Oh,” was the answer, “as old and grey as ever!”

Now Mrs. Armistead stopped Sylvia in the street:  “My dear, how goes the eugenics campaign?”

And while Sylvia gazed, dumbfounded, the other went on as if she were chatting about the weather:  “You can’t realise what a stir you are making in our little frog pond.  Come, see me, and let me tell you the gossip!  Do you know you’ve enriched our vocabulary?”

“I have made someone look up the meaning of eugenics, at least,” answered Sylvia—­having got herself together in haste.

“Oh, not only that, my dear.  You have made a new medical term—­the ‘van Tuiver disease.’  Isn’t that interesting?”

For a moment Sylvia shrivelled before this flame from hell.  But then, being the only person who had ever been able to chain this devil, she said:  “Indeed?  I hope that with so fashionable a name the disease does not become an epidemic!”

Mrs. Armistead gazed at her, and then, in a burst of enthusiasm, she exclaimed:  “Sylvia Castleman, I have always insisted that one of the most interesting women in the world was spoiled by the taint of goodness in you.”