s especially appreciated in a community where
there were so few with whom one could really unbend and talk freely--to
all of which Mrs. Toomey agreed thoroughly, understanding, as she did,
what Mrs. Pantin meant exactly.

"Even in a small community one must keep up the social bars and preserve
the traditions of one's up-bringing, mustn't one?"

"One is apt to become lax, too democratic--it's the tendency of this
western country," Mrs. Toomey assented. She felt very exclusive and
elegant at the moment.

Mrs. Pantin's eyes had been upon her work, now she raised them and
looked at Mrs. Toomey squarely.

"Have you seen--a--Miss Prentice lately?"

Mrs. Toomey had the physical sensation of her heart flopping over. That
was it, then! She had the feeling of having been trapped--hopelessly
cornered. In a mental panic she answered:

"Not lately."

"Are you expecting to see much of her?"

There was something portentous in the sweetness with which Mrs. Pantin
asked the question.

It was a crisis--not only the test of her promised friendship and
loyalty to Kate but to her own character and courage. Was she strong
enough to meet it?

It was one of Mrs. Toomey's misfortunes to be not only self-analytical,
but honest. She had no hallucinations whatever regarding her own
weaknesses and shortcomings. As she called a spade a spade, so she knew
herself to be by instinct and early training a toady. Of the same type,
in appearance and characteristics, in this trait, lay the main
difference in the two women: while Mrs. Pantin with her better
intelligence was intensely selfish, Mrs. Toomey's dominant trait was a
moral cowardice that made her a natural sycophant.

No quaking soldier ever exerted more will power to go into battle than
did Mrs. Toomey to answer:

"I hope so."

Mrs. Pantin's bright blue eyes sharpened. "Ah-h, they must have money!"
she reflected. Aloud she said:

"Really?"

"Certainly."

This was mutiny. Mrs. Pantin lifted a sparse eyebrow--the one which the
application of a burnt match improved wonderfully.

"Do you think that's--wise?"

Mrs. Toomey had a notion that if she attempted to stand her legs would
behave like two sticks of wet macaroni, yet she questioned defiantly:

"Why not?"

Undoubtedly they had made a raise somewhere!

"Why--my dear--her reputation!"

"She doesn't know any more about that murder than we do," bluntly.

"I wasn't referring to the murder--her morals."

"I don't questi