then the sunset gun shook the window, and twilight
settled down upon the still frozen earth. She bathed her heated
forehead and flushed cheeks, threw a warm cloak over her shoulders, and
came slowly down the stairs. Mrs. Rayner met her at the parlor door.

"Kate, I am going for a walk, and shall stop and see Mrs. Waldron."

"Quite an unnecessary piece of information. I saw him as well as you. He
has just gone there."

Miss Travers flushed hot with indignation:

"I have seen no one; and if you mean that Mr. Hayne has gone to Major
Waldron's, I shall not."

"No: I'd meet him on the walk: it would only be a trifle more public."

"You have no right to accuse me of the faintest expectation of meeting
him anywhere. I repeat, I had not thought of such a thing."

"You might just as well do it. You cannot make your antagonism to my
husband much more pointed than you have already. And as for meeting Mr.
Hayne, the only advice I presume to give now is that for your own sake
you keep your blushes under better control than you did the last time
you met--that I know of." And, with this triumphant insult as a parting
shot, Mrs. Rayner wheeled and marched off through the parlor.

What was a girl to do? Nellie Travers was not of the crying kind, and
was denied a vast amount of comfort in consequence. She stood a few
moments quivering under the lash of injustice and insult to which she
had been subjected. She longed for a breath of pure, fresh air; but
there would be no enjoyment even in that now. She needed sympathy and
help, if ever girl did, but where was she to find it? The women who most
attracted her and who would have warmly welcomed her at any time--the
women whom she would eagerly have gone to in her trouble--were
practically denied to her. Mrs. Rayner in her quarrel had declared war
against the cavalry, and Mrs. Stannard and Mrs. Ray, who had shown a
disposition to welcome Nellie warmly, were no longer callers at the
house. Mrs. Waldron, who was kind and motherly to the girl and loved to
have her with her, was so embarrassed by Mrs. Rayner's determined snubs
that she hardly knew how to treat the matter. She would no longer visit
Mrs. Rayner informally, as had been her custom, yet she wanted the girl
to come to her. If she went, Miss Travers well knew that on her return
to the house she would be received by a volley of sarcasms about her
preference for the society of people who were the avowed enemies of her
benefactors.