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.

The boy gazed at them with intense relish. He realized the joy of a
coup. He had never been very important in his own estimation nor that
of others. Now he knew what it was to be important. "Yes," he said,
gayly; "they say she give her rat poison. They've sent for the
sheriff from Alford."

"She never did it in the world. Why, I went to school with her,"
gasped Mrs. Ayres.

Sylvia had the same conviction, but she backed it with logic. "What
should she do it for?" she demanded. "Miss Farrel was a steady
boarder, and Lucinda ain't had many steady boarders lately, and she
needed the money. Folks don't commit murder without reason. What
reason was there?"

"School ain't going to keep to-day," remarked the boy, with glee.

"Of course it ain't," said Sylvia, angrily. "What reason do they
give?"

"I 'ain't heard of none," said the boy. "S'pose that will come out at
the trial. Hannah Simmons is going to be arrested, too. They think
she knowed something about it."

"Hannah Simmons wouldn't hurt a fly," said Sylvia. "What makes them
think she knew anything about it?"

"Johnny Soule, that works at the hotel stable, says she did," said
the boy. "They think he knows a good deal."

Sylvia sniffed contemptuously. "That Johnny Soule!" said she. "He's
half Canadian. Father was French. I wouldn't take any stock in what
he said."

"Lucinda never did it," said Mrs. Ayres. "I went to school with her."

Lucy sobbed again wildly, then she laughed loudly. Her mother turned
and looked at her. "Lucy," said she, "you go straight back up-stairs
and put this