family was highly
thought of, leastwise the girls, for William does not go for much, you
know--too stupid and too brutal."

William! Would the utterance of that name heighten my suggestion? I
surveyed her closely, but could detect no change in her somewhat puzzled
countenance.

"My allusions were not in reference to the disappearances," said I. "I
was thinking of something else. Lucetta is not well."

"Ah, I know! They say she has some kind of heart complaint, but that was
not true then. Why, her cheeks were like roses in those days, and her
figure as plump and pretty as any you could see among our village
beauties. No, Miss Butterworth, it was through her weakness she lost
him. She probably palled upon his taste. It was noticed that he held his
head very high in going out of town."

"Has he married since?" I asked.

"Not to my knowledge, ma'am."

"Then he loved her," I declared.

She looked at me quite curiously. Doubtless that word sounds a little
queer on my lips, but that shall not deter me from using it when the
circumstances seem to require. Besides, there was once a time--But
there, I promised to fall into no digressions.

"You should have been married yourself, Miss Butterworth," said she.

I was amazed, first at her daring, and secondly that I was so little
angry at this sudden turning of the tables upon myself. But then the
woman meant no offence, rather intended a compliment.

"I am very well contented as I am," I returned. "_I_ am neither sickly
nor timid."

She smiled, looked as if she thought it only common politeness to agree
with me, and tried to say so, but finding the situation too much for
her, coughed and discreetly held her peace. I came to her rescue with a
new question:

"Have the women of the Knollys family ever been successful in love? The
mother of these girls, say--she who was Miss Althea Burroughs--was her
life with her husband happy? I have always been curious to know. She and
I were schoolmates."

"You were? You knew Althea Knollys when she was a girl? Wasn't she
charming, ma'am? Did you ever see a livelier girl or one with more knack
at winning affection? Why, she couldn't sit down with you a half-hour
before you felt like sharing everything you had with her. It made no
difference whether you were man or woman, it was all the same. She had
but to turn those mischievous, pleading eyes upon you for you to become
a fool at once. Yet her end was sad, ma'am; too sad, when you r