“Nothing further,” assented Robin.  “I watched her down the lane as far as the turning, and that was the last.”

“Did she go to Mrs. Duff’s, I wonder?” asked Mr. Verner.

Oh, yes; several of those present could answer that.  There was the parcel brought up by Dan Duff, as testimony; and, if more had been needed, Mrs. Duff herself had afforded it, for she made one of the crowd outside.

“We must have Mrs. Duff in,” said Mr. Verner.

Accordingly, Mrs. Duff was brought in—­a voluble lady with red hair.  Mr. Verner politely asked her to be seated, but she replied that she’d prefer to stand, if ’twas all the same.  She was used to standing in her shop, and she couldn’t never sit for a minute together when she was upset.

“Did Rachel Frost purchase things of you this evening, Mrs. Duff?”

“Well, she did, and she didn’t,” responded Mrs. Duff.  “I never calls it purchasing of things, sir, when a customer comes in and says, ’Just cut me off so and so, and send it up.’  They be sold, of course, if you look at it in that light; but I’m best pleased when buyers examines the goods, and chats a bit over their merits.  Susan Peckaby, now, she—­”

“What did Rachel Frost buy?” interrupted Mr. Verner, who knew what Mrs. Duff’s tongue was, when it was once set going.

“She looked in at the shop, sir, while I was a-serving little Green with some bone buttons, that her mother had sent her for.  ’I want some Irish for aprons, Mrs. Duff,’ says she.  ’Cut off the proper quantity for a couple, and send it me up some time to-morrow.  I’d not give the trouble,’ says she, ’but I can’t wait to take it now, for I’m in a hurry to get home, and I shall be wanting the aprons.’  ’What quality—­pretty good?’ said I.  ‘Oh, you know,’ says she; ’about the same that I bought last time.  And put in the tape for strings, and a reel of white cotton, No. 30.  And I don’t mind if you put in a piece of that German ribbon, middling width,’ she went on.  ’It’s nicer than tape for nightcaps, and them sort o’ things.’  And with that, sir, she was turning out again, when her eyes was caught by some lavender prints, as was a-hanging just in the doorway.  Two shades of it, there was, dark and light.  ’That’s pretty,’ says she.  ‘It’s beautiful,’ said I; ’they be the sweetest things I have had in, this many a day; and they be the wide width.  Won’t you take some of it for a gownd?’ ‘No,’ says she, ’I’m set up for cotton gownds.’  ‘Why not buy a bit of it for a apron or two?’ I said.  ’Nothing’s cleaner than them lavender prints for morning aprons, and they saves the white.’  So she looked at it for a minute, and then she said I might cut her off a couple o’ yards of the light, and send it up with the other things.  Well, sir, Sally Green went away with her buttons, and I took down the light print, thinking I’d cut off the two yards at once.  Just then, Susan Peckaby comes in for some gray worsted, and she falls