Belle Worsham

Belle Worsham is "quite old" and "thin" (260). Though impoverished now, she is the granddaughter of a man who owned slaves, including the ancestors of Mollie, whose (honorary) maiden name of Worsham acknowledges the sisterly relationship the two women had before Mollie's marriage. "Miss Belle," as Mollie calls her (266), lives in "the decaying house her father had left her" (260), and with the help of Mollie's brother Hamp and his wife supports herself by growing and selling "chickens and vegetables" (260). In these details she is identical to Eunice Habersham, a major character in Intruder in the Dust. In addition, like Emily Grierson in an earlier Faulkner story, she also gives "lessons in china painting" to the town's young ladies (260). She remains very attached to Mollie: she reaches deep into her almost empty purse to help make sure Samuel Beauchamp gets a proper burial in Yoknapatawpha county, she joins in Mollie's mourning, and is the only person who accompanies Mollie in the car that follows the hearse out to the Edmonds' place.