It will be seen, therefore, that Mrs. Meanwell is naturally fitted to fill the position of “dearest friend” to all kinds and conditions of women, and, certainly, her experience has been as varied as are her qualifications. Therefore, it could hardly be expected that she would confine her sympathetic offices to one friend, or be content with a single stock of confidences. At the same time she is an enthusiastic partisan, and if any of her “dearest friends” be involved in any social squabbles, matrimonial troubles, or financial difficulties, she is on the warpath at once. She is like an Indian scout, and carries intelligence from camp to camp. Mrs. Meanwell has codes of loyalty of her own, and she is her own arbiter in the matter, women being proverbially unable to bind themselves arbitrarily to one code as men must do. For that reason we never talk of a woman of honour as we talk of a man of honour; it would be too unfair. Women have quite enough restrictions and responsibilities to bear without having to trouble themselves with an exacting code of loyalty towards each other. So a little elasticity in this matter is, perhaps, excusable—at all events, since feminine custom stales its infinite variety. However, I daresay—in fact I feel sure—that Mrs. Meanwell is as loyal to her “dearest friends” as they are to her; and if mischief be sometimes made between them by the too officious repetition of some innocently-betrayed confidence, it is the fault of the person who made the mischief, not of Mrs. Meanwell, who never intended what she said to be told again. And, of course, it has been entirely distorted in the telling. Is it likely that _she_, her dearest friend’s “dearest friend,” would tell anything told to her in confidence, if she thought it would be repeated? Not that Mrs. Meanwell received it originally as a confidence; she thought other people knew it too, and after all it was such a good story, and if it sounded rather unkind in the repetition, _she_ never told it in that spirit. Had not her friend laughed herself when she told it to her originally? But some people have no tact, and never know when, where, or to whom a personal story may be told without offence. So Mrs. Meanwell was not really responsible for the ill-timed and unwarranted repetition, and to say she was disloyal is most unkind and unwomanly. Who could resist such reasoning? Who could continue to regard Mrs. Meanwell other than as a “dearest friend” after such an unanswerable defence? Anyhow, the intermediary mischief-maker “it was who died,” or rather who fell into disfavour, and she, after all, was absolutely innocent in the matter, and acted in perfect good faith, for she merely wished to warn her friend against being too confidential with a woman who gossiped about other people’s affairs. Mrs. Meanwell a gossip! What next, I should like to know? How these “dearest friends” love one another.