"What has hindered her before now?"

"Oh, her mother was a helpless invalid, and Alice was the only child,
and she had been in college just a year when her father died, then
she came home and lived with her mother, but her mother has been dead
two years now, and Alice has plenty of money. Her father left a good
deal, and her cousin and aunt live with her. Oh, yes, she could, but
why should she want to leave Fairbridge, and--"

Then some new arrivals approached, and the discussion concerning
Alice Mendon ceased. The ladies came rapidly now. Soon Mrs. Slade's
hall, reception-room, and dining-room, in which a gaily-decked table
was set, were thronged with women whose very skirts seemed full of
important anticipatory stirs and rustles. Mrs. Snyder's curved smile
became set, her eyes absent. She was revolving her lecture in her
mind, making sure that she could repeat it without the assistance of
the notes in her petticoat pocket.

Then a woman rang a little silver bell, and a woman who sat short but
rose to unexpected heights stood up. The phenomenon was amazing, but
all the Fairbridge ladies had seen Miss Bessy Dicky, the secretary of
the Zenith Club, rise before, and no one observed anything remarkable
about it. Only Mrs. Snyder's mouth twitched a little, but she
instantly recovered herself and fixed her absent eyes upon Miss Bessy
Dicky's long, pale face as she began to read the report of the club
for the past year.

She had been reading several minutes, her glasses fixed firmly (one
of her eyes had a cast) and her lean, veinous hands trembling with