on them, either."

"You are very charitable, Delia. She lived alone with Mormon Joe, didn't
she?"

A frost seemed suddenly to have touched the perfect friendship between
these kindred spirits.

"I'm merely just," Mrs. Toomey retorted, though her heart was beating
furiously. "All we know is hearsay."

With the restraint and sweetness of one who knows her power, Mrs. Pantin
replied:

"I'm sure it's lovely of you to defend her."

"Not at all--I like her personally," Mrs. Toomey answered stoutly.

It was time to lay on the lash; Mrs. Pantin saw that clearly.

"Nevertheless, as a friend I wouldn't advise you to take her
up--to--er--hobnob with her." Mrs. Pantin did not like the word, but the
occasion required vigorous language.

"I'm the best judge of that, Prissy." Her hands were icy.

"When you came to town a stranger I tried to guide you in social
matters," Mrs. Pantin reminded her. "I told you whose call to return and
whose not to--you found my judgment good, didn't you?"

"You've been more than kind," Mrs. Toomey murmured miserably, and added,
"I'm so sorry for her."

"We all are that, Delia, but nevertheless I think you will do well to
follow my suggestion in this matter."

Mrs. Toomey recognized the veiled threat instantly. It conveyed to her
social ostracism--not being asked to serve on church committees--omitted
when invitations for teas were being issued--cold-shouldered out of the
Y.A.K. Society, which met monthly for purposes of mutual improvement--of
being blackballed, perhaps, when she would become a Maccabee! She
repressed a shudder; her work swam before her downcast eyes and she drew
up the darn on the stocking she was repairing until it looked like a
wen. The ordeal was worse than she had imagined it.

And how she hated Priscilla Pantin!

Always Mrs. Toomey had had a quaint conceit that if she listened
attentively she would be able to hear Priscilla's heart jingling in her
body--rattling like a bit of ice in a tin bucket. Now the woman's mean,
chaste little soul laid bare before her filled Delia Toomey with a dumb
fury.

Mrs. Pantin waited patiently for her answer, though the experience was a
new one. Usually she had only to reach for the whip when her satellites
mutinied; almost never was it necessary to crack it.

While Mrs. Toomey hesitated Mrs. Pantin folded her work--this, too, was
significant.

Mrs. Toomey replied, finally, in desperation:

"I'll think over what you've said, Pr