she was
insulted by our society."

"How did our society insult her?" asked Rilla, in what she called her
'cold-pale tone.' Its coldness and pallor did not daunt Olive.

"You insulted her," she answered sharply. "Irene told me all about
it--she was literally heart-broken. You told her never to speak to you
again--and Irene told me she simply could not imagine what she had said
or done to deserve such treatment. That was why she never came to our
meetings again but joined in with the Lowbridge Red Cross. I do not
blame her in the least, and I, for one, will not ask her to lower
herself by helping us out of this scrape."

"You don't expect me to ask her?" giggled Amy MacAllister, the other
member of the committee. "Irene and I haven't spoken for a hundred
years. Irene is always getting 'insulted' by somebody. But she is a
lovely singer, I'll admit that, and people would just as soon hear her
as Mrs. Channing."

"It wouldn't do any good if you did ask her," said Olive significantly.
"Soon after we began planning this concert, back in April, I met Irene
in town one day and asked her if she wouldn't help us out. She said
she'd love to but she really didn't see how she could when Rilla Blythe
was running the programme, after the strange way Rilla had behaved to
her. So there it is and here we are, and a nice failure our concert
will be."

Rilla went home and shut herself up in her room, her soul in a turmoil.
She would not humiliate herself by apologizing to Irene Howard! Irene
had been as much in the wrong as she had been; and she had told such
mean, distorted versions of their quarrel everywhere, posing as a
puzzled, injured martyr. Rilla could never bring herself to tell her
side of it. The fact that a slur at Walter was mixed up in it tied her
tongue. So most people believed that Irene had been badly used, except
a few girls who had never liked her and sided with Rilla. And yet--the
concert over which she had worked so hard was going to be a failure.
Mrs. Channing's four solos were the feature of the whole programme.

"Miss Oliver, what do you think about it?" she asked in desperation.

"I think Irene is the one who should apologize," said Miss Oliver. "But
unfortunately my opinion will not fill the blanks in your programme."

"If I went and apologized meekly to Irene she would sing, I am sure,"
sighed Rilla. "She really loves to sing in public. But I know she'll be
nasty about it--I feel I'd rather do anything t