hat she was of principle firmly
opposed to gossip; but as an intelligent woman, she recognized that
certain things require ventilation for the good of the community, and
was accustomed in such emergencies to send personal reluctance to the
rear. The tale of how He coming unexpectedly home found Him with Her
was then put through its paces with such skilful jockeying that not one
in ten would know it for the same dobbin so lately brought limping to
the light.

As now set forth, He had fathomed Her and Him with more shrewdness than
the world had given him credit for possessing--poor man!--and had been
hoodwinked by their transparent devices for meeting at the golf links
and on lonely country roads no more than had Mrs. Bowers or any other
person of equal virtue and capacity. He had seen, and he had warned.
Then, stolen sweets becoming perilous near home, the culprits had taken
their several ways to New York,--most fit choice for such a pilgrimage!
This too was fathomed and forgiven. O unwise clemency! O base
requital! Violence upon discovery? No doubt. Loaded pistol
constantly in the house since the last burglar scare. At this Mrs.
Bowers recollected shots in the night; Seneca had said "Campaign
fireworks"; but she knew better; shots, of course. Dreadful thing to
happen at one's very door. An immediate separation naturally. By all
the laws of righteousness she should not be given the custody of the
child.

In affairs requiring ventilation for the common good Mrs. Bowers could
conceive of no instrument so sure as the Widow Weatherwax, who
providentially dropped in to borrow flour at the precise moment Mrs.
Bowers had decided that if she ever meant to run over and copy the
widow's unequalled recipe for floating island, this was the time to do
it. Quite in the same breath with her greetings, therefore, Mrs.
Bowers intimated that were she one of those odious persons who carried
tales, which of course she was not, she could astonish the widow with a
chronicle of happenings not remote in time or scene. But when told,
the widow was not astonished.

"I've knowed she wuz a Scarlet Woman since the last night ov the
camp-meetin' at Eden Centre," she explained. "It come to me when I see
her a-standin' outside the circle, and it was borne in on me to testify
b'fore the brethren."

In this, its third edition, the tale gained picturesqueness and
circumstantial weight. To the New York episode the widow contributed
the