The Old Lady peered at Miss Quincey and her eyes were sharp as needles, needles that carried the thread of her thought pretty plainly too, but it was too fine a thread for Miss Quincey to see. Besides she was looking at the cake and almost regretting that she had bought it, lest he should think that it was eating too many of such things that had made her ill. "And what put that notion into your head, I should like to know?" "He has written to say so." "Juliana--you don't mean to tell me that he invited himself?" "Well, no. That is--it was an answer to my invitation." "_Your_ invitation? You were not content to have that man poking his nose in here at all hours of the day and night, but you must go out of your way to send him invitations?" "Dr. Cautley has been most kind and attentive, and--I thought--it was time we paid him some little attention." "Attention indeed! I should be very sorry to let any young man suppose that I paid any attention to him. I should have thought you'd have had a little more maidenly reserve. Besides, you know perfectly well that I don't enjoy my tea unless we have it by ourselves." Oh yes, she knew; they had been having it that way for five-and-twenty years. "As for that cake," continued the Old Lady, "it's ridiculous. Look at it. Why, you might just as well have ordered wedding cake at once. I tell you what it is, Juliana, you're getting quite flighty." Flighty? No mind but a feminine one, grown up and trained under the shadow of St. Sidwell's, could conceive the nature of Miss Quincey's feelings on being told that she was flighty. She herself made no attempt to express them. She sat down and gasped, clutching her Browning to give herself a sense of moral support. All the rest was intelligible, she had understood and accepted it; but to be told that she, a teacher in St. Sidwell's, was flighty--the charge was simply confusing to the intellect, and it left her dumb. Flighty? When Martha came in with the tea-tray and she had to order a knife for the cake and an extra cup for Dr. Cautley, she saw Mrs. Moon looking at Martha, and Martha looking at Mrs. Moon, and they seemed to be saying to each other, "How flighty Miss Juliana is getting." Flighty? The idea afflicted her to such a degree that when Dr. Cautley came she had not a word to say to him.