"Folks are silly enough for anything. Of course, I knew better; you
know that, Mrs. Ayres."

"I don't know what I know," replied Mrs. Ayres, with that forceful
indignation of which a gentle nature is capable when aroused.

Mrs. Whitman looked frightened. She opened her lips to speak, when a
boy came running into the yard. "Why, who is that?" she cried,
nervously.

"It's Tommy Smith from Gray & Snow's with some groceries I ordered,"
said Mrs. Ayres, tersely. She left the room to admit the boy at the
side door. Then Sylvia Whitman heard voices in excited conversation.
At the same time she began to notice that the road was filled with
children running and exclaiming. She herself hurried to the kitchen
door, and Mrs. Ayres turned an ashy face in her direction. At the
same time Lucy Ayres, with her fair hair dishevelled, appeared at the
top of the back stairs listening. "Oh, it is awful!" gasped Mrs.
Ayres. "It is awful! Miss Eliza Farrel is dead, and--"

Sylvia grasped the other woman nervously by the arm. "And what?" she
cried.

Lucy gave an hysterical sob and sank down in a slender huddle on the
stairs. The grocer's boy looked at them. He had a happy, important
expression. "They say--" he began, but Mrs. Ayres forestalled him.

"They say Lucinda Hart murdered her," she screamed out.

"Good land!" said Sylvia. Lucy sobbed again.