e if I knew any
different."

"No," said I, almost struck dumb by my success, but letting no hint of
my complacency escape me. "And I did not mean they should. You are a
decent woman, Mrs. Boppert, and should not be troubled."

"Thank you, ma'am. But how did you know she had come to the house before
I left. Did you see her?"

I hate a lie as I do poison, but I had to exercise all my Christian
principles not to tell one then.

"No," said I, "I didn't see her, but I don't always have to use my eyes
to know what is going on in my neighbor's houses." Which is true enough,
if it is somewhat humiliating to confess it.

"O ma'am, how smart you are, ma'am! I wish I had some smartness in me.
But my husband had all that. He was a man--O what's that?"

"Nothing but the tea-caddy; I knocked it over with my elbow."

"How I do jump at everything! I'm afraid of my own shadow ever since I
saw that poor thing lying under that heap of crockery."

"I don't wonder."

"She must have pulled those things over herself, don't you think so,
ma'am? No one went in there to murder her. But how came she to have
those clothes on. She was dressed quite different when I let her in. I
say it's all a muddle, ma'am, and it will be a smart man as can explain
it."

"Or a smart woman," I thought.

"Did I do wrong, ma'am? That's what plagues me. She begged so hard to
come in, I didn't know how to shut the door on her. Besides her name was
Van Burnam, or so she told me."

Here was a coil. Subduing my surprise, I remarked:

"If she asked you to let her in, I do not see how you could refuse her.
Was it in the morning or late in the afternoon she came?"

"Don't you know, ma'am? I thought you knew all about it from the way you
talked."

Had I been indiscreet? Could she not bear questioning? Eying her with
some severity, I declared in a less familiar tone than any I had yet
used:

"Nobody knows more about it than I do, but I do not know just the hour
at which this lady came to the house. But I do not ask you to tell me if
you do not want to."

"O ma'am," she humbly remonstrated, "I am sure I am willing to tell you
everything. It was in the afternoon while I was doing the front basement
floor."

"And she came to the basement door?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"And asked to be let in?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Young Mrs. Van Burnam?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Dressed in a black and white plaid silk, and wearing a hat covered with
flowers?"

"Yes, ma'am, or som