"Please tell us."Laurel and I begged Pearl.  "Please tell us about Miss Mary Francis and why she never got married."
 
Pearl, Laurel's maid and virtual mother, tilted her head back and sized up our seriousness.  When she seemed satisfied at our commitment, she started again.
 
"The Lanier's had servants and from what I hear tell, Miss Mary Francis was fair to 'em and paid 'em a decent wage even though she weren't nothing but a little gurl when she took to running that house for her father."
 
"But, for all them years when they was growing up, /  her and her sister Miss Weasy, /  Miss Mary Francis managed that whole big ole house and took care a Mr. Lanier.  And he waren't no easy man to take care of."

"Why?"  I asked.
 
"'Cause he was a mean man.  He was a unhappy man, didn't have no consideration of nobody."
 
"Not even Miss Mary Francis?"  Laurel asked.
 
"Specially Miss Mary Francis.  He didn't have no regard for Miss Mary Francis at all.  He order Miss Mary Francis around and talk ugly to her all the time.  And he was always telling her how homely and plain she was."
 
"Miss Mary Francis?"  I asked in amazement.
 
Pearl nodded her head.  "See 'ole Mr. Lanier, he had made his mind up that Miss Mary Francis was gonna' take care of him for the rest of his life and run his house, and take his wife's place.  He didn't want Miss Mary Francis goin' anywhere."
 
"So he told her she was ugly."  Laurel said, staring off, letting the full seriousness of this sink in.
 
"Tha's right.  Long as she thought she was ugly, she wasn't goin' nowhere.  Miss Weasy, now, she was the bell of the ball, there was all the time young men over there, suitors.  She went to dances and out on dates, but not Miss Mary Francis.  She stayed right there with her Daddy."
 
"Why did she believe him?"  I asked.  "Miss Mary Francis is beautiful."
 
Pearl shook her head.  "I knows that, and you knows that, and Miss Laurel here knows that.  The whole town knows that, but not Miss Mary Francis."
 
"How could she not know?"  I continued.
 
"Chile' the mind is a strange kind a thing.  The mind can make you see a devil in the mirror if it want to.  The mind can make you do all kinds of things, /  'specially if somebody else got a hole't of it."
 
"And Daddy Lanier had hold of hers."
 
"Yes mam.  That ole' man made sure he had his fingers wrapped tight around Miss Mary Francis's mind.  Squeezing all the time.  He was a tellin' her no man would ever want her, she so plain an' tall an' washed out.  Then, he squeeze some more, tightenin' them crooked fingers round her mind.  He'd tell her any man act like he wanted her, was jes after her money, and he'as a lying to her.  And, then, he take them crippled hands with them yellow nails and be a squeezing tighter.  He'd tell her if she went out with one of 'em, it'd be like making a fool out of herself, for all the town to see /  an makin' a fool out of him."
 
"How awful."  Laurel said, still staring off.
 
"You right chile' it was a evil, selfish thing to do to a young gurl, but he done it.  And, he done it for hisself, his own selfish, sorry self."  Pearl fell silent and Laurel and I sat imagining.
 
Suddenly Laurel looked at Pearl.  "Well?"
 
Pearl started laughing.  "I thought you two done fell into a spell or somethin."