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The banker really was shocked. "You don't mean Miss Sutton has—" The pause in his sentence was eloquent and he stared at his sister in genuine dismay.

"That's exactly what I mean. It's all over town! Ever'body's talkin' it!"

"Oh, that's awful! Maybe it's a false rumour—things get started. . . ."

"False rumour nothing!" cried the old woman. "Mr. Bagley saw 'em down at the station huggin' an' kissin' in a disgustin' manner!"

"Bagley's a lecher and a rake himself!"

"They tell that on Mr. Bagley, but I don't know—he makes a mighty good salary down there at the freight office."

Here the conversation came to a pause; the banker continued to look inquiringly at his sister and finally said, "Roxie, you didn't come down here simply to tell me that?"

"No, I didn't!" exclaimed the old woman, breaking into rancour again. "It's like this"—she shook a bony finger at her brother. "What right has Nessie Sutton got to stay in this town! Other loose women haff to git out!"

Mr. Northcutt was genuinely surprised. "You wouldn't treat a young girl as the boys did those old strumpets, Roxie?"

Mrs. Biggers compressed her thin lips. "The Bible says, God is no respecter of persons, Perry, and besides you know a young pretty girl can raise more trouble in less time than a house full of the other sort. Now sence Nessie Sutton has showed up in her true character, I think the people of Arntown ort to make her clear out along with the rest. No use bein' mealy-mouthed about it even if she is purty. We don't want her kind amongst us. So I say a delegation ort to wait on her jest like they did on old Mol Garraty!"

Mr. Perry Northcutt, who thought he knew his sister, marvelled for the hundredth time in his life at the peculiar ferocity of women toward women. A notion, due to his Biblical studies, flitted across his mind that if Christ had