So there!" Public opinion had for once triumphed on the right side, and Mabel and Bertha, greatly discomfited, found their influence over the late Stars was at an end.

The threat of telling Rachel had frightened Mabel; she was uncertain how much the Camellia Buds really knew, and judged it discreet to drop her clandestine correspondence.

She had no wish for the matter to meet the ears of Miss Rodgers, who, she was well aware, would take the most serious view of it.

Though she cherished a grudge against her late inquisitors, she submitted to their demands, and for the time at any rate gave no outward cause for complaint..