“We have just got to keep Hynds House, if only to teach these Hyndsville women a lesson.”  She spoke after a pause.  “Sophy, they flatten their ears and arch their backs at sight of us; and whenever there’s a good chance for a wipe of a paw, why, we catch it across the nose.  Now I,” she admitted frankly, “am naturally full of cat feelings myself.  I will not do what you want to do—­walk off looking aggrieved, after the fashion of Old Dog Tray.  I will repay in kind, retaliate in true lady-cat manner.  And these,”—­she began to smile—­“these shall be our weapons of offense and defense.  It will be a gorgeous struggle; however, my forebears came from Kilkenny!”

I laughed, but indeed I did not feel any too optimistic.  Holding down Hynds House was no easy task, and the town was not disposed to make it easier for us.  While we had been busy renovating, while our hands were so full of work that every minute was occupied, we hadn’t felt our isolation.  It was only when we had time to pause and look around us, that the stubborn, quiet hostility of the town’s attitude to the new owner of Hynds House was borne in upon us.

Not that anything overt was done by any one.  Nor was there the slightest breach of politeness:  they were as punctiliously polite when chance brought us into contact with them, as well-bred folk are to strangers whose further acquaintance they have no desire to cultivate.  The vestrymen of St. Polycarp’s had expressed their appreciation of Miss Smith’s action in promptly dropping the suit against them; she was welcome to come and worship God in their church, and to do her duty by the heathen.  Such ladies as happened to belong to the missionary society spoke to us pleasantly in the church vestibule.  The minister and his wife were as sincerely, duteously courteous.  But that was all.  Not a house in Hyndsville opened its doors to us.  They simply would not accept the interloper that the malignity of the Scarlett Witch had put in possession of that which should have gone back to Richard’s last heir, or failing him, to Richard Geddes.

The fact that these two descendants of the Hyndses did not seem to see and do their duty as members of that illustrious family, but shamelessly made friends with the aliens, did not raise us in the town’s estimation.  Quite the contrary.  Nor were they even faintly angry with Mr. Jelnik and Doctor Geddes, who were, so to say, unsuspicious Israelites coaxed into the Canaanitish camp.

I admit that I considered Doctor Richard Geddes undiplomatic in his behavior.  It never once occurred to that lordly gentleman, who had had his own way ever since he was born, that he should stop now to consider the feelings or the prejudices of Hyndsville.  It wasn’t that he meant to champion us.  It never occurred to him that we needed championing.  He simply liked us because he liked us.  We pleased him.  That sufficed, so far as he was concerned.