or the heathen--"

"I've just finished with the heathen!" was the quick interruption.

"Well, my dear," Mrs. Delancy commented drily, "if you'd only work for
the far-off heathen, you'd find it much more satisfactory. You might not
do any good, to be sure; but, anyhow, the bad results wouldn't affect
you."

Cicily got to her feet, without making any reply, and went to the mirror
at one end of the drawing-room. There, she busied herself after the
feminine fashion with concealing the more apparent ravages made by her
weeping. When she came back to face her aunt again, she was her usual
charming self, save for a lack of color in her cheeks, and a portentous
gravity in the drooping of the mouth.... Happily, she was not of the
majority, whose noses bloom redly when watered with tears.

"And now," she said, desolately, "I've got to tell them!" She nodded
toward the withdrawing-room, where the three candidates were waiting;
and Mrs. Delancy understood.

"Why don't you write it to them?" she advised. "Whenever I have anything
uncomfortable to tell anyone, I always write it. Then, I let your Uncle
Jim read the reply.... It's so much more satisfactory that way, and, you
know, he can say right out what I don't dare even to think."

But Cicily had courage and a conscience. She felt that she must not
shirk the consequences to herself of her own indiscretion.

"No, I'll tell them," she declared resolutely; but her heart was sick
within her at contemplation of the scene that waited.

Fortunately, perhaps, small time was given Cicily for dread
anticipations. Hardly had she ceased speaking when the door into the
withdrawing-room was cautiously opened, and the face of Mrs. McMahon was
made visible to the two women who had faced about at sound of the knob
turning. On perceiving that the room was empty save for the hostess and
Mrs. Delancy, the Irishwoman threw the door wide, and came forward.

"Faith, it was so quiet I was sure they'd gone," she announced, with
manifest pride in her deductive powers. There was, too, a general air of
elation in the woman's manner of carriage that struck a chill to
Cicily's heart. And the cold of it deepened as Mrs. Schmidt and Sadie
Ferguson followed into the drawing-room, each evidently in a state of
exaltation. The three ranged themselves in rude dignity before their
hostess. Mrs. McMahon constituted herself the spokeswoman.

"Well," she inquired genially, "now that we're members of the club, wh