let me tell them. I want
to get rid of them somehow."

Sylvia looked at Lucinda anxiously. "Is it true that Albion Bennet
has left?" she said.

"Yes; he was afraid of getting poisoned. Mrs. Jim Jones has taken
him. I reckon I sha'n't have many steady boarders after this has
quieted down."

"But how are you going to get along, Lucinda?"

"I shall get along. Everybody gets along. What's heaped on you you
have to get along with. I own the hotel, and I shall keep more hens
and raise more garden truck, and let Hannah go if I can't pay her. I
shall have some business, enough to keep me alive, I guess."

"Is it true that Amos Quimby has jilted Hannah on account of--?"

"Guess so. He hasn't been near her since."

"Ain't it a shame?"

"Hannah's got to live with what's heaped on her shoulders, too," said
Lucinda. "Folks had ought to be thankful when the loads come from
other people's hands, instead of their own, and make the best of it.
Hannah has got a good appetite. It ain't going to kill her. She can
go away from East Westland by-and-by if she wants to, and get another
beau. Folks didn't suspect her much, anyway. I've got the brunt of
it."

"Lucinda," said Sylvia, earnestly. "Folks can't really believe you'd
go and do such a thing."

"It's like flies after molasses," said Lucinda. "I never felt I was
so sweet before in my life."

"What can they think you'd go and poison a good, steady boarder like
that for?"

"She paid a dollar a day," said Lucinda.

"I know she did."

"And I liked her," said Lucinda. "I know lots of folks didn't, but I
did. I know what folks said, and I'll own I found things in her room,
but I don't care what folks do to their outsides as long as their
insides are right. Miss Farrel was a real good woman, and she had a
kind of hard time, too."

"Why, I thought she had a real good place in the high-school; and
teachers earn their money dreadful easy."

"It wasn't that."

"What was it?"

Lucinda hesitated. "Well," she said, finally, "it can't do her any
harm, now she's dead and gone, and I don't know as it was anything
against her, anyway. She just set her eyes by your boarder."

"Not Mr. Allen? You don't mean Mr. Allen, Lucinda?"

"What other boarder have you had? I've known about it for a long
time. Hannah and me both have known, but we never opened our lips,
and I don't want it to go any further now."

"How did you find out?"

"By keeping my eyes and ears open. How does anybo