It was not unusual for Josey to receive three admirers at a time, and she managed so admirably that she kept them all amiable and civil, though each hated the other cordially, and wondered why he would persist in coming where he was not wanted. Night after night Mrs. Morton and Mr. Hayden were kept awake till after midnight by the low hum of voices and occasional bursts of suppressed laughter which came from the vicinity of the horse-block, and when Mrs. Morton complained of it in the presence of Josephine, that young lady was very sorry, and presumed it was some of the hired girls in town, who had a great way of hanging over gates with their lovers, and sitting upon horse-blocks into all hours of the night. But Mrs. Julia was not deceived. Her great black eyes read the girl aright, and when she saw a female figure steal cautiously up the walk into the house, and heard the footsteps of two or three individuals going down the road, she guessed _who_ the “hired girls” were, and Josephine suspected that she did, and removed her trysting-place from the horse-block to the rear of the garden, where she was out of ear-shot of the “old muffs,” as she styled Mrs. Morton and Mrs. Hayden. And here she received her _friends_, as she called them,—and laughed, and flirted, and played with them, but was very careful not to overstep certain bounds of propriety, and thus give Everard an excuse on which to base an action for divorce, should he ever bring himself to consider such an act, which she doubted. He was too proud for that, and would rather live with and dislike her, than repudiate her openly, and bring a stain upon the Forrest name. It was impossible for her to understand his real feelings toward her. Indifferent he was, of course, and sorry, no doubt, for the tie which bound them; but she was so thoroughly convinced of her own charms and power to fascinate, that she had little fear of winning him back to something like allegiance when she once had him under her influence again. He could not resist her; no man could, except the old judge; and secure in this belief she went on her way, while Beatrice watched her narrowly, and began at last to believe there was no real good in her. “The most shameless flirt I ever saw, with claws like a cat,” Mrs. Hayden said of her,—“why, she has actually tried her power on Harry, and asked him so insinuatingly and pityingly if he really thought oatmeal agreed with him as well as a juicy steak or mutton-chop.”