pronunciation, but in the fact
that she had changed it. Having come from Carthage, she must forever
remain a Carthagenian or face down a storm of wrath. Her quarrel with
her lover was the beginning of a quarrel with the whole town.

Arthur Litton became suddenly a hero, like the first man wounded in a
war. The town rallied to his support. Emma was a heartless wretch, who
had insulted a faithful lover because he would not become as abject a
toady to the hateful East as she was. Her new name became a byword. Her
pronunciations were heard everywhere in the most ruthless parody. She
was accused of things that she never had said, things that nobody could
ever say.

They inflicted on her the impossible habit of consistency. She was
reported as calling a hat a "hot," a rat a "rot," of teaching her little
sister to read from the primer, "Is the cot on the mot?" Pronunciation
became a test of character. The soft "r" and the hard "a" were taken as
proofs of effeminate hypocrisy.

Carthage differed only in degree, not in kind, from old Italy at the
time of the "Sicilian Vespers," when they called upon everybody to
pronounce the word "ciceri." The natives who could say "chee-cheree"
escaped, but the poor French who could come no nearer than "seeseree"
were butchered. Gradually now in Carthage the foreigners from
Massachusetts, Georgia, England, and elsewhere ceased to be regarded
with tolerance. Their accents no longer amused. They gave offense.

In the railroad office there were six or seven of these new-comers. They
were driven together by indignation. They took up Amelie's cause; made
her their queen; declined invitations in which she was not included;
gave parties in her honor: took her buggy-riding. Each had his day.

A few girls could not endure her triumph. They broke away from the fold
and became renegades, timidly softening their speech. This infuriated
the others, and the town was split into Guelph and Ghibelline.

Amelie enjoyed the notoriety immensely. She flaunted her success. She
ridiculed the Carthage people as yokels. She burlesqued their jargon as
outrageously as they hers.

The soda-water fountains became battle-fields of backbiting and mockery.
The feuds were as bitter, if not as deadly, as those that flourished
around the fountains in medieval Italian towns. Two girls would perch on
the drug-store stools back to back, and bicker in pretended ignorance
of each other's presence. Tudie Litton would order "sa