Page:Caroline Lockhart--The Fighting Shepherdess.djvu/156

 plied her needle, and while Mrs. Toomey adroitly selected the stockings which needed the least darning from her basket of mending, the latter came nearer really liking Priscilla Pantin than she had since she had known her.

Mrs. Pantin exhibited a completed spray for Mrs. Toomey's approval and commented upon the swiftness with which time sped in congenial company. A delightful afternoon was especially appreciated in a community where there were so few with whom one could really unbend and talk freely—to all of which Mrs. Toomey agreed thoroughly, understanding, as she did, what Mrs. Pantin meant exactly.

"Even in a small community one must keep up the social bars and preserve the traditions of one's up-bringing, mustn't one?"

"One is apt to become lax, too democratic—it's the tendency of this western country," Mrs. Toomey assented. She felt very exclusive and elegant at the moment.

Mrs. Pantin's eyes had been upon her work, now she raised them and looked at Mrs. Toomey squarely.

"Have you see—a—Miss Prentice lately?"

Mrs. Toomey had the physical sensation of her heart flopping over. That was it, then! She had the feeling of having been trapped—hopelessly cornered. In a mental panic she answered:

"Not lately."

"Are you expecting to see much of her?"

There was something portentous in the sweetness with which Mrs. Pantin asked the question.

It was a crisis—not only the test of her promised friendship and loyalty to Kate but to her own character and courage. Was she strong enough to meet it?

It was one of Mrs. Toomey's misfortunes to be not only