Should She Have Left Him? — page 159: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

MRS. TREVOR-ALLEN S INTRIGUE. 153 Mrs. Deekman and Mrs. Beestonmy and their followers. But the bishop’s reticence unly added fuel to the flames. Echoes of the gossip reached Mrs. Courtenay, and she thanked her stars that Hilda was safely married. But she vowed vengeance and warfare upon those instrumental in spreading the gossip. When she heard of the Deekman dinner and the movement to ostracize Dorothy, she determined to show that she could bite. Mrs. Deekman and Mrs. Beestonmy learned that she could, and very hard, too, for at the annual meeting of the crack charity society, a seat in the directory of which was passport to the inner circles of society, these two ladies found the seats which they had only achieved the previous year filled by two friends of Mrs. Courtenay. They were under no misapprehension as to the cause of their reverse, and regarded it as a declaration of war, and vigorous war it would have beencould Mrs. Courtenay have persuaded Trescotte to consent to a reappearance in society. Dorothy realized that Trescotte’s fears were not without foundation when she found that certain people who had formerly smiled sweetly upon her, who had stepped out of their way to be nice to her, now discovered something of interest in the opposite direction when they met her. Of course all this hurt her, but she dismissed it philosophically. But she was to undergo one ordeal she had not ex. pected. She attended an afternoon symphony concert at the Music Hall. Something had pre- Comicloeo® KS C@ 3