Mrs. Toomey recognized the veiled threat instantly. It conveyed to her social ostracism--not being asked to serve on church committees--omitted when invitations for teas were being issued--cold-shouldered out of the Y.A.K. Society, which met monthly for purposes of mutual improvement--of being blackballed, perhaps, when she would become a Maccabee! She repressed a shudder; her work swam before her downcast eyes and she drew up the darn on the stocking she was repairing until it looked like a wen. The ordeal was worse than she had imagined it. And how she hated Priscilla Pantin! Always Mrs. Toomey had had a quaint conceit that if she listened attentively she would be able to hear Priscilla's heart jingling in her body--rattling like a bit of ice in a tin bucket. Now the woman's mean, chaste little soul laid bare before her filled Delia Toomey with a dumb fury. Mrs. Pantin waited patiently for her answer, though the experience was a new one. Usually she had only to reach for the whip when her satellites mutinied; almost never was it necessary to crack it. While Mrs. Toomey hesitated Mrs. Pantin folded her work--this, too, was significant. Mrs. Toomey replied, finally, in desperation: "I'll think over what you've said, Priscilla. I appreciate your intentions, thoroughly, believe me." There was a cowed note in her voice which Mrs. Pantin detected. She smiled faintly. "I don't know when I've spent such a delightful afternoon," and kissed her. Mrs. Toomey curbed an impulse to bite her friend as she returned the parting salute. "And I've so enjoyed having you," she murmured. * * * * * Mrs. Toomey turned pale when she looked through the front window and saw Kate, a few days after Mrs. Pantin's visit, dismount and tie her horse to the cottonwood sapling, for the threat, which held for her all the import of a Ku-Klux warning, had been hanging over her like the sword of Damocles. It had haunted her by day, and at night she could not sleep for thinking of it, and yet she was no nearer reaching a decision than when the struggle between her conscience and her cowardice had started. Quite instinctively she glanced again to see if the neighbors were looking. There were interested faces at several windows. Mrs. Toomey had a sudden feeling of irritation, not with the sentinels doing picket duty but with Kate for tying her horse in front so conspicuously. Mrs. Toomey shrank from the staring eyes as though she had found herself walking down the middle of the road in her underclothing. The feeling vanished when Kate came up the walk slowly and she saw how white and haggard the girl's face was. Mrs. Toomey opened the door and asked her in nervously. Kate looked at her wistfully as though she yearned for some display of affection beyond the conventional greeting, but since Mrs. Toomey did not offer to kiss her she sank into a chair with a suggestion of weariness.