fan as if for silence. "Besides, they have their quarters outside, and
both are old. Out West people may do the things she is doing, but in
Virginia we are different. We--"

"Oh, we're nothing of the kind, Lizzie," and Mrs. Webb laid her sewing
in her lap. "Yorkburg is like all the rest of the world, as we would
know if we went about more. The trouble is, we think we are the world."

"I don't see why Mary Cary shouldn't live in the way she wants to,"
said Mrs. Corbin. "We live to suit ourselves, and why shouldn't she?
Heaven knows she's done enough for Yorkburg since she came back. I
think she was mighty good to come and live in a quiet little town like
this, when she could live almost anywhere she wants. And think of the
money she spends here!"

"That is just it! Where does all that money come from? Only yesterday
she chartered the /General Maury/ to take the orphan children on
an all-day picnic to Wayne Beach on the fourteenth of this month, and
all at her expense. It takes money to do things of this kind. She says
she is not rich. Where does the money come from?"

Mrs. Pryor tapped the table on which her hands had rested and looked
around with an answer-that-now-if-you-can air, and several started to
answer. Mrs. Burnham's voice was clearest, however, and as she spoke
those in front turned to hear her.

"We don't know where it comes from," she said, courageously, though
her face flushed, "and I am not sure that it is required of us to know.
If Miss Cary prefers not to discuss her money matters, we have no right
to inquire into them. I have not been here very long, and I don't know