"I'd let her go, if I was you. Why shouldn't she? She's no relation of yours."
"Cragg thinks he's bound to do something for her, because it was his house that fell, and that's how her father got killed."
"Ridiculous!" declared Mrs. Smithers. "I'd like to hear my husband talking like that."
"Your husband isn't Cragg," observed Mrs. Cragg, with truth.
"If he was Mr. Cragg I wouldn't let him. People ought to have sense."
Mrs. Smithers' eyes roved, and Mrs. Cragg saw that another subject was about to be introduced.
"Nobody can tell you anything about Pattie except me."
"But what do you know about her? thought they came here as strangers."
"All the same, I know something." Mrs. Cragg's air was of fascinating mystery.
"Tell me, there's a good woman. What do you know?"