"You can't dodge the situation in any such way; you had no right to come back. Your coming can only bring up the old scandal, that we have been trying to live down. It's not a thing you can laugh off. A woman can't do what you did in a town like this and come back expecting everybody to smile over it." "And Jack Holton has just been here; that was bad enough!" threw in Mrs. Hastings. "And if you are still running after _him_--" "Girls!" exploded Amzi, "you'd better cut all this out. You're not going to help matters by fussing over what Lois did. I'm sure we're all glad to have her back; I'm sure we've always hoped she would come back." "I think the least you say about it the better, Amzi," said Mrs. Waterman witheringly. "It's your fault that she's here. And if you had honored us with your confidence and taken our advice--" "Thunder! what would you have done about it! I didn't think it was any of your business." This from the potential benefactor of their children was not reassuring. The financial considerations crystallized by the return of the wanderer were not negligible. Every one in Montgomery knew that Jack Holton had come back to wrest money from William, and it was inconceivable that Lois had not flung herself upon Amzi for shelter and support. And as they had long assumed that she was a pensioner upon her brother's bounty, they were now convinced by the smartness of her gown and her general "air" as of one given to self-indulgence in the world's bazaars, that she had become a serious drain upon Amzi's resources. "I think," declared Mrs. Waterman, "that it is a good deal our business. We can't make the world over to suit ourselves, and we can't fly in the face of decency without getting scratched. And when a woman brought up as Lois was does what she did, and runs through with her money, and comes home--" She gulped in her effort to express the enormity of her sister's transgressions; whereupon Mrs. Fosdick caught the ball and flung back:-- "Of course, if Lois is in need of help, we all stand ready to help her. She must understand that we feel strongly the ties of blood, and I want to say that I'm willing to do my share, in the very fullest sense." Lois rose impatiently.