ut my Annie is more
wonderful because she can be told so and never get the fact into her
head. Here is your work, dear."

An expression of dismay came over Annie's face. "Oh, dear," she said,
"I have only embroidered half a daisy and what will Aunt Harriet
say?"

"You have embroidered a whole garden as nobody else can, if people
only knew it," said Alice.

"But Alice," said Annie ruefully, "my embroidery is really awful and
I don't like to do it and the linen is so grimy that I am ashamed.
Oh, dear, I shall have to face Aunt Harriet with that half daisy!"

Alice laughed. "She can't kill you."

"No, but I don't like to have her so disappointed."

Alice kissed Annie again before she went, and watched the slight
figure flitting down between the box-rows, with a little frown of
perplexity. She wished that Annie had not told Margaret Edes about
the book and yet she did not know why she wished so. She was very far
from expecting the results. Alice was too noble herself to entertain
suspicions of the ignobility of others. Certainty she was obliged to
confront, as she had confronted the affair of the night before. It
was, of course, the certainty that Margaret had been guilty of a
disgraceful and treacherous deed which made her uneasy in a vague
fashion now and yet she did not for one second dream of what was to
occur at the next meeting of the Zenith Club.

That was at Mrs. Sturtevant's and was the great affair of the year.
It was called, to distinguish it from the others, "The Annual
Meeting," and upon that occasion the husbands and men friends of the
members were invited and the function was in the evening. Margaret
had wished to have the club at her own house, before the affair of
Martha Wallingford, but the annual occasions were regulated by the
letters of the alphabet and it was incontrovertibly the turn of the
letter S and Mrs. Sturtevant's right could not be questioned. During
the time which elapsed before this meeting, Margaret Edes was more
actively unhappy than she had ever been in her life and all her
strong will could not keep the traces of that unhappiness from her
face. Lines appeared. Her eyes looked large in dark hollows. Wilbur
grew anxious about her.

"You must go somewhere for a change," he said, "and I will get my
cousin Marion to come here and keep house and look out for the
children. You must not be bothered even with them. You need a
complete rest and change."

But Margaret met his anxiety w