(Little) Belle Mitchell

In Flags in the Dust Little Belle is the young daughter of Belle and Harry Mitchell who, by the end, is Horace Benbow's step-daughter - though Belle herself makes it clear to her new acquaintances in the new town she lives in "that Horace is not her real daddy" (378). When she appears again in Sanctuary she is a young woman. While she never appears directly in that novel, except as a voice on the far end of a telephone, she plays a major role in the story: it is her sexuality mated with her barely disguised disdain for Horace that drives him from Kinston to make his way home again to Jefferson - where he keeps a photo of her (and not his wife) beside the bed he sleeps in. She may not be as promiscuous as Horace imagines, but as a modern young woman she is clearly a threat to both his idea of femininity and his peace of mind.