the house, and not have heard the
bell," Mrs. Lee said, with a curious tone, as if she replied to some
unspoken suggestion.

"I know this house as well as I do my own. You know how much I used
to be here when the Ranger girls were alive. There is not a room in
this house where anybody with ears can't hear the bell."

Still, Mrs. Van Dorn spoke in that curiously ashamed and indignant
voice. Mrs. Lee contradicted her no further.

"Well, I suppose you must be right," said she. "There can't be
anybody at home; but it is strange they went off and did not even
shut the front door."

"I don't know what the Ranger girls would have said, if they knew it.
They would have had a fit at the bare idea of going away for ever so
short a time, and leaving the house and furniture alone and the door
unlocked."

"Their furniture is here now, I suppose?"

"Yes, I suppose so--some of it, anyway, but I don't know how much
furniture these people bought, of course."

"Mr. Lee said he heard they had such magnificent things."

"I heard so, but you hear a good deal that isn't so in Banbridge!"

"That is true. I suppose you knew the house and the Ranger girls'
furniture so well that you could tell at a glance what was new and
what wasn't?"

"Yes, I could."

As with one impulse both women turned and peered through a green maze
of trees and bushes at Samson Rawdy, several yards distant.

"Can you see him?" whispered Mrs. Lee.

"Yes. I think he's asleep. He is sitting with his head all bent over."

"He is--not--looking?"

"No."

Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Van Dorn regarded each other. Both looked at once
ashamed and defiant before the other, then into each pair of eyes
leaped a light of guilty understanding and perfect sympathy. There
are some natures for whom curiosity is one of the master passions,
and the desire for knowledge of the affairs of others can become a
lust, and Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Van Dorn were of the number. Mrs. Van
Dorn gave her head in her best calling-bonnet a toss, and the
violets, which were none too securely fastened, nodded loosely; then
she thrust her chin forward, she sniffed like a hunting-hound on the
scent, pushed open the front-door, and entered, with Mrs. Lee
following. As Mrs. Van Dorn entered, the violets on her bonnet became
quite detached and fell softly to the floor of the porch, but neither
of the ladies noticed.

Mrs. Lee, in particular, had led a monotonous life, and she had a
small but intense spiri