“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 out of your mind, or you’ll be down sick.  Go straight up-stairs and lie down, and I’ll bring you up some of that nerve medicine Dr. Wallace put up for you.  Maybe you can get to sleep.”

Lucy sobbed and laughed again.  “Stop right where you are,” said her mother, with a wonderful, firm gentleness—­“right where you are.  Put this thing right out of your mind.  It’s nothing you can help.”

Lucy sobbed and laughed again, and this time her laugh rang so wildly that the grocer’s boy looked at her with rising alarm.  He admired Lucy.  “I say,” he said.  “Maybe she ain’t dead, after all.  I heard all this, but you never can tell anything by what folks say.  You had better mind your ma and put it all out of your head.”  The grocer’s boy and Lucy had been in the same class at school.  She had never noticed him, but he had loved her as from an immeasurable distance.  Both were very young.

Lucy lifted a beautiful, frightened face, and stared at him.  “Isn’t it so?” she cried.

“I dare say it ain’t.  You had better mind your ma.”

“I dare say it’s all a rumor,” said Sylvia, soothingly.

Mrs. Ayres echoed her.  “All a made-up story, I think,” said she.  “Go right up-stairs, Lucy, and put it out of your head.”

Lucy crept up-stairs with soft sobs, and they heard a door close.  Then the boy spoke again.  “It’s so, fast enough,” he said, in a whisper, “but there ain’t any need for her to know it yet.”

“No, there isn’t, poor child,” said Sylvia.

“She’s dreadful nervous,” said Mrs. Ayres, “and she thought a lot of Miss Farrel—­more, I guess, than most.  The poor woman never was a favorite here.  I never knew why, and I guess nobody else ever did.  I don’t care what she may have intimated—­I mean what you were talking about, Sylvia.  That’s all over.  Lucy always seemed to like her, and the poor child is so sensitive and nervous.”

“Yes, she is dreadful nervous,” said Sylvia.

“And I think she ate too much candy yesterday, too,” said Mrs. Ayres.  “She made some candy from a recipe she found in the paper.  I think her stomach is sort of upset, too.  I mean to make her think it’s all talk about Miss Farrel until she’s more herself.”

“I would,” said Sylvia.  “Poor child.”

The grocer’s boy made a motion to go.  “I wonder if they’ll hang her,” he said, cheerfully.