“Yes, I daresay it would have been very becoming to Louisa,” said Miss Quincey humbly.  “I—­I thought it was lavender.”

“Lavender or no lavender, I’m surprised at you—­throwing money away on a thing like that.”

“I can afford it,” said Miss Quincey with the pathetic dignity of the turning worm.

Now it was not worm-like subtlety that suggested that reply.  It was positive inspiration.  By those simple words Juliana had done something to remove the slur she was always casting on a certain character.  Tollington Moon had not managed his nieces’ affairs so badly after all if one of them could afford herself extravagances of that sort.  The blouse therefore might be taken as a sign and symbol of his innermost integrity.  So Mrs. Moon was content with but one more parting shot.

“I don’t say you can’t afford the money, I say you can’t afford the colour—­not at your time of life.”

Two tears that had gathered in Miss Quincey’s eyes now fell on the silk, deepening the mauve-pink to a hideous magenta.

“I was deceived in the colour,” she said as she turned from her tormentor.

She toiled upstairs to the back bedroom and took it off.  She could never wear it.  It was waste—­sheer waste; for no other woman could wear it either; certainly not Louisa; she had made it useless for Louisa by paring it down to her own ridiculous dimensions.  Louisa was and always had been a head and shoulders taller than she was; and she had a bust.

So Miss Quincey came down meek and meagre in the old dress that she served her for so many seasons, and she looked for peace.  But that terrible old lady had not done with her yet, and the worst was still to come.

No longer having any grievance against the blouse, Mrs. Moon was concentrating her attention on that more mysterious witness to Juliana’s foolishness—­the Cake.

“And now,” said she, pointing as she might have pointed to a monument, “will you kindly tell me the meaning of this?”

“I expect—­perhaps—­it is very likely—­that Dr. Cautley will come in to tea this afternoon.”

The Old Lady peered at Miss Quincey and her eyes were sharp as needles, needles that carried the thread of her thought pretty plainly too, but it was too fine a thread for Miss Quincey to see.  Besides she was looking at the cake and almost regretting that she had bought it, lest he should think that it was eating too many of such things that had made her ill.

“And what put that notion into your head, I should like to know?”

“He has written to say so.”

“Juliana—­you don’t mean to tell me that he invited himself?”

“Well, no.  That is—­it was an answer to my invitation.”

“Your invitation?  You were not content to have that man poking his nose in here at all hours of the day and night, but you must go out of your way to send him invitations?”

“Dr. Cautley has been most kind and attentive, and—­I thought—­it was time we paid him some little attention.”