"Can you prove this?" demanded Miss Pryor, gazing stolidly at the animated speaker.
"I can, by producing the lady's own daughter, of whose very existence, I doubt not, the pious Elder is at this moment in profound ignorance," said Mrs. Garnet.
"That alters the case materially, then," said Mrs. Wynn. "These facts must be carefully investigated, and if they are true, it's very likely our new minister will have occasion to resign before long. You don't bear any hardness, I hope, neighbor. It's been a very tryin' task, but somebody had to undertake it."
"Of course," was the reply. "Our object is to elicit the truth, and I am willing to help probe this matter to the bottom."
"Now," said Betsey Pryor, when they were again upon the street, "we will stir up some excitement, I guess. Let's go to the minister's as straight as ever we can."
CHAPTER XVII.
Miss Pryor had never uttered a truer remark than the one at the close of our last chapter. There was an excitement in the little village, before which the sensation created by the pretty schoolmistress, became as nothing. The wordy war raged fiercely, and life-long enmities were created between those who had been intimate friends, endeared to each other by years of pleasant intercourse.
Meanwhile the offending Garnets were socially ostracized. Only little Mrs. Swan resolutely defended them. It seemed that this determined lady was destined to become the champion of all the persecuted of her own sex in the tiny village.