med and welcomed, it transpired that
Mrs. Flight found herself very frequently dropped from the
sleigh-rides,--only invited semi-occasionally, perhaps once in ten days,
when Burtis pointed out to Willett that they really must, you know, to
which the now infatuated Willett merely responded, "All right. You ask
her, then, and let her sit with you." No one but Mrs. Davies shared the
sleigh man's seat.

During the fortnight that followed the departure of Lieutenant Davies,
Mrs. Flight had been devotion itself to her dear, bereaved friend, and,
having wept with her, slept with her, sleighed with her, bared her
innermost soul to her, and made herself, as she supposed, indispensable,
it was to be expected that Mrs. Flight could not look with equanimity
upon the discovery that she was not so indispensable after all. She had
started Mira on the road to conquest, never dreaming that she herself
would be the first overtaken and supplanted. She had thought hitherto no
possible harm could come of their taking an occasional drive with their
friends, especially as Mr. Flight expressed himself so grateful for the
attention shown his wife, and as she and Mrs. Darling seemed chosen
rather to the exclusion of the other women, but when Mira and not
herself became the invariable occupant of the seat by the swell
civilian's side, the indiscretion, not to say the impropriety of the
affair, became glaringly apparent. It is rarely from the contemplation
of our own, but rather from the errors of our neighbors, that our moral
lessons are drawn, and now that in all its nakedness the scandalous
nature of Mira's conduct was forced upon her attention, Mrs. Flight
reasoned, most logically, that she could be no true friend if she failed
to remonstrate and, if need be, admonish and reprove. She did so, and
Almira pouted and was grievously vexed. She didn't think so at all,
neither had Mrs. Flight until--until she began to be counted out. This
led to war, and from pointing the moral Mrs. Flight now turned to
adorning the tale with what "everybody was saying." Mira challenged her
authorities. "I know who you mean,--Mrs. Cranston and Miss Loomis. They
hate me and would say anything mean of me." Now, it was not Mrs.
Cranston and Miss Loomis at all. They had no more intimacy with Mrs.
Flight than they had with Mira, nor as much. They looked upon Mrs.
Flight as responsible in great measure for Almira's wrong start. They
under no circumstances would confide to