"Oh, yes; very--very well, indeed!" she threw back, in a quick, defiant tone, very unlike her usual self; and then, as I looked at her, I perceived to my dismay, that she was crying bitterly. I felt so awkward that I did not know what to say, and I stood staring, while she pulled down her veil with a jerk, and hurried on. I could not help going into Minnie's to ask her what she thought it could mean. Minnie, of course, knew all about it. "She has been in here, and I have been giving her a piece of my mind. I hope it will do her good. Crying, was she? I am very glad of it." "But, Minnie! how could you? how did you dare to? how did you begin?" I asked in amazement, heightened by the disrespectful way in which Minnie had dealt with elective affinities. "Oh, very easily. I began about her children, and said how very delicate they looked, and that we all thought they needed a great deal of care." "But she does seem to take a great deal of care of them. She has them with her most of the time." "Yes; that's just it. She always has them, because she wants to use them for a cover. I am sure she takes them out in very unfit weather, and keeps them out too long, just for a pretext to be strolling about with him." "You certainly have more courage than I could muster up," I said. "What else did you say?" "I did not say anything else out plainly; but I saw she understood perfectly well what I meant." "I don't see how you ever dared to do it." "It is enough to make one do something to live next door to her as I do. You know that Walter Dana has not been at either of the two last dancing-classes. Well, it is just because he has been there, spending the whole evening with her alone. I have been kept at home myself, and have seen him with my own eyes going away before Mr. Williams gets home. I can see their front gate from where I sit now, and the electric light strikes full on every one who comes and goes."