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She was a tall, thin woman with a long pale face and liquid green eyes. As she looked around the circle she had the air of a cat daintily licking its chops over some titbit.

“I suppose,” she said, “that you have heard the news?”

She knew perfectly well that they had not. Every other woman at the frame stopped quilting. Mrs. Eben came to the door with a pan of puffy, smoking-hot soda biscuits in her hand. Sara stopped counting the custard dishes, and turned her ripely-colored face over her shoulder. Even the black cat, at her feet, ceased preening his fur. Mrs. George felt that the undivided attention of her audience was hers.

“Baxter Brothers have failed,” she said, her green eyes shooting out flashes of light. “Failed DISGRACEFULLY!”

She paused for a moment; but, since her hearers were as yet speechless from surprise, she went on.

“George came home from Newbridge, just before I left, with the news. You could have knocked me down with a feather. I should have thought that firm was as steady as the Rock of Gibraltar! But they’re ruined–absolutely ruined. Louisa, dear, can you find me a good needle?”

“Louisa, dear,” had set her biscuits down with a sharp thud, reckless of results. A sharp, metallic tinkle sounded at the closet where Sara had struck the edge of her tray against a shelf. The sound seemed to loosen the paralyzed tongues, and everybody began talking and exclaiming at once. Clear and shrill above the confusion rose Mrs. George Pye’s voice.

“Yes, indeed, you may well say so. It IS disgraceful. And to think how everybody trusted them! George will lose considerable by the crash, and so will a good many folks. Everything will have to go–Peter Baxter’s farm and Lige’s grand new house. Mrs. Peter won’t carry her head so high after this, I’ll be bound. George saw Lige at the Bridge, and he said he looked dreadful cut up and ashamed.”

“Who, or what’s to blame for the failure?” asked Mrs. Rachel Lynde sharply. She did not like Mrs. George Pye.

“There are a dozen different stories on the go,” was the reply. “As far as George could make out, Peter Baxter has been speculating with other folks’ money, and this is the result. Everybody always suspected that Peter was crooked; but you’d have thought that Lige would have kept him straight. HE had always such a reputation for saintliness.”

“I don’t suppose Lige knew anything about it,” said Mrs. Rachel indignantly.

“Well, he’d ought to, then. If he isn’t a knave he’s a fool,” said Mrs. Harmon Andrews, who had formerly been among his warmest partisans. “He should have kept watch on Peter and found out how the business was being run. Well, Sara, you were the level-headest of us all–I’ll admit that now. A nice mess it would be if you were married or engaged to Lige, and him left without a cent–even if he can clear his character!”

“There is a good deal of talk about Peter, and swindling, and a lawsuit,” said Mrs. George Pye, quilting industriously. “Most of the Newbridge folks think it’s all Peter’s fault, and that Lige isn’t to blame. But you can’t tell. I dare say Lige is as deep in the mire as Peter. He was always a little too good to be wholesome, I thought.”

There was a clink of glass at the cupboard, as Sara set the tray down. She came forward and stood behind Mrs. Rachel Lynde’s chair, resting her shapely hands on that lady’s broad shoulders. Her face was very pale, but her flashing eyes sought and faced defiantly Mrs. George Pye’s cat-like orbs. Her voice quivered with passion and contempt.

“You’ll all have a fling at Lige Baxter, now that he’s down. You couldn’t say enough in his praise, once. I’ll not stand by and hear it hinted that Lige Baxter is a swindler. You all know perfectly well that Lige is as honest as the day, if he IS so unfortunate as to have an unprincipled brother. You, Mrs. Pye, know it better than any one, yet you come here and run him down the minute he’s in trouble. If there’s another word said here against Lige Baxter I’ll leave the room and the house till you’re gone, every one of you.”