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ever known. She was lonely and she could never remember being so
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lonely before. Perhaps she had never had the time to be very
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lonely until now. She was lonely and afraid and there was no one
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to whom she could turn, no one except Melanie. For now, even
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Mammy, her mainstay, had gone back to Tara. Gone permanently.
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Mammy gave no explanation for her departure. Her tired old eyes
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looked sadly at Scarlett when she asked for the train fare home.
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To Scarlett's tears and pleading that she stay, Mammy only
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answered: "Look ter me lak Miss Ellen say ter me: 'Mammy, come
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home. Yo' wuk done finish.' So Ah's gwine home."
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Rhett, who had listened to the talk, gave Mammy the money and
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patted her arm.
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"You're right, Mammy. Miss Ellen is right. Your work here is
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done. Go home. Let me know if you ever need anything." And as
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Scarlett broke into renewed indignant commands: "Hush, you fool!
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Let her go! Why should anyone want to stay in this house--now?"
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There was such a savage bright glitter in his eyes when he spoke
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that Scarlett shrank from him, frightened.
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"Dr. Meade, do you think he can--can have lost his mind?" she
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questioned afterwards, driven to the doctor by her own sense of
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helplessness.
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"No," said the doctor, "but he's drinking like a fish and will kill
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himself if he keeps it up. He loved the child, Scarlett, and I
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guess he drinks to forget about her. Now, my advice to you, Miss,
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is to give him another baby just as quickly as you can."
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"Hah!" thought Scarlett bitterly, as she left his office. That was
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easier said than done. She would gladly have another child,
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several children, if they would take that look out of Rhett's eyes
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and fill up the aching spaces in her own heart. A boy who had
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Rhett's dark handsomeness and another little girl. Oh, for another
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girl, pretty and gay and willful and full of laughter, not like the
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giddy-brained Ella. Why, oh, why couldn't God have taken Ella if
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He had to take one of her children? Ella was no comfort to her,
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now that Bonnie was gone. But Rhett did not seem to want any other
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children. At least he never came to her bedroom though now the
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door was never locked and usually invitingly ajar. He did not seem
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to care. He did not seem to care for anything now except whisky
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and that blowzy red-haired woman.
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He was bitter now, where he had been pleasantly jeering, brutal
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where his thrusts had once been tempered with humor. After Bonnie
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died, many of the good ladies of the neighborhood who had been won
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over to him by his charming manners with his daughter were anxious
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to show him kindness. They stopped him on the street to give him
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their sympathy and spoke to him from over their hedges, saying that
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they understood. But now that Bonnie, the reason for his good
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manners, was gone the manners went to. He cut the ladies and their
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well-meant condolences off shortly, rudely.
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But, oddly enough, the ladies were not offended. They understood,
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or thought they understood. When he rode home in the twilight
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almost too drunk to stay in the saddle, scowling at those who spoke
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to him, the ladies said "Poor thing!" and redoubled their efforts
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to be kind and gentle. They felt very sorry for him, broken
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hearted and riding home to no better comfort than Scarlett.
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Everybody knew how cold and heartless she was. Everybody was
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appalled at the seeming ease with which she had recovered from
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Bonnie's death, never realizing or caring to realize the effort
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that lay behind that seeming recovery. Rhett had the town's
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tenderest sympathy and he neither knew nor cared. Scarlett had the
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town's dislike and, for once, she would have welcomed the sympathy
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of old friends.
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Now, none of her old friends came to the house, except Aunt Pitty,
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Melanie and Ashley. Only the new friends came calling in their
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shining carriages, anxious to tell her of their sympathy, eager to
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divert her with gossip about other new friends in whom she was not
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at all interested. All these "new people," strangers, every one!
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They didn't know her. They would never know her. They had no
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realization of what her life had been before she reached her
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present safe eminence in her mansion on Peachtree Street. They
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didn't care to talk about what their lives had been before they
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attained stiff brocades and victorias with fine teams of horses.
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They didn't know of her struggles, her privations, all the things
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that made this great house and pretty clothes and silver and
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receptions worth having. They didn't know. They didn't care,
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these people from God-knows-where who seemed to live always on the
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surface of things, who had no common memories of war and hunger and
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fighting, who had no common roots going down into the same red
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earth.
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Now in her loneliness, she would have liked to while away the
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afternoons with Maybelle or Fanny or Mrs. Elsing or Mrs. Whiting or
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even that redoubtable old warrior, Mrs. Merriwether. Or Mrs.
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Bonnell or--or any of her old friends and neighbors. For they
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knew. They had known war and terror and fire, had seen dear ones
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dead before their time; they had hungered and been ragged, had
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lived with the wolf at the door. And they had rebuilt fortune from
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ruin.
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It would be a comfort to sit with Maybelle, remembering that
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Maybelle had buried a baby, dead in the mad flight before Sherman.
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