"Attention indeed! I should be very sorry to let any young man suppose
that I paid any attention to him. I should have thought you'd have had a
little more maidenly reserve. Besides, you know perfectly well that I
don't enjoy my tea unless we have it by ourselves."

Oh yes, she knew; they had been having it that way for five-and-twenty
years.

"As for that cake," continued the Old Lady, "it's ridiculous. Look at it.
Why, you might just as well have ordered wedding cake at once. I tell you
what it is, Juliana, you're getting quite flighty."

Flighty? No mind but a feminine one, grown up and trained under the
shadow of St. Sidwell's, could conceive the nature of Miss Quincey's
feelings on being told that she was flighty. She herself made no attempt
to express them. She sat down and gasped, clutching her Browning to give
herself a sense of moral support. All the rest was intelligible, she had
understood and accepted it; but to be told that she, a teacher in St.
Sidwell's, was flighty--the charge was simply confusing to the intellect,
and it left her dumb.

Flighty? When Martha came in with the tea-tray and she had to order a
knife for the cake and an extra cup for Dr. Cautley, she saw Mrs. Moon
looking at Martha, and Martha looking at Mrs. Moon, and they seemed to be
saying to each other, "How flighty Miss Juliana is getting."

Flighty? The idea afflicted her to such a degree that when Dr. Cautley
came she had not a word to say to him.

For a whole week she had looked forward to this tea-drinking with tremors