u come to know and like us better, you will not care so much to
talk to neighbors. They never can understand us or do us justice, Mr.
Trohm, especially."

This was a remark I could not let pass.

"Why?" I demanded. "Why do you think Mr. Trohm cherishes such animosity
towards you? Has he ever----"

But Lucetta could exercise a repellent dignity when she chose. I did not
finish my sentence, though I must have looked the inquiry I thought
better not to put into words.

"Mr. Trohm is a man of blameless reputation," she avowed. "If he has
allowed himself to cherish suspicions in our regard, he has doubtless
had his reasons for it."

And with these quiet words she left me to my thoughts, and I must say to
my doubts, which were all the more painful that I saw no immediate
opportunity for clearing them up.

Late in the afternoon William burst in with news from the other end of
the lane.

"Such a lark!" he cried. "The investigation at Deacon Spear's house was
a mere farce, and I just made them repeat it with a few frills. They had
dug up my cellar, and I was determined they should dig up his. Oh, the
fun it was! The old fellow kicked, but I had my way. They couldn't
refuse me, you know; I hadn't refused them. So that man's cellar-bottom
has had a stir up. They didn't find anything, but it did me a lot of
good, and that's something. I do hate Deacon Spear--couldn't hate him
worse if he'd killed and buried ten men under his hearthstone."

"There is no harm in Deacon Spear," said Lucetta, quickly.

"Did they submit Mr. Trohm's house to a search also?" asked Loreen,
ashamed of William's heat and anxious to avert any further display of
it.

"Yes, they went through that too. I was with them. Glad I was too. I
say, girls, I could have laughed to see all the comforts that old
bachelor has about him. Never saw such fixings. Why, that house is as
neat and pretty from top to bottom as any old maid's. It's silly, of
course, for a man, and I'd rather live in an old rookery like this,
where I can walk from room to room in muddy boots if I want to, and
train my dogs and live in freedom like the man I am. Yet I couldn't help
thinking it mighty comfortable, too, for an old fellow like him who
likes such things and don't have chick or child to meddle. Why, he had
pincushions on all his bureaus, and they had pins in them."

The laugh with which he delivered this last sentence might have been
heard a quarter of a mile away. Lucetta lo