"Are you ready to wager that that is all there is to it?"
This was a startling proposition to the minister.
"You forget my cloth," said he.
The young man smiled. "That is true. Pardon me. I was only anxious to show how strong my conviction was against any such easy explanation of a crime marked by such contradictory features."
Two children on the Portchester road were exchanging boyish confidences.
"Do you know what I think about it?" asked one.
"Naw! How should I?"
"Wall, I think old Mrs. Webb got the likes of what she sent. Don't you know she had six children once, and that she killed every one of them?"
"Killed'em—she?"
"Yes, I heard her tell granny once all about it. She said there was a blight on her house—I don't know what that is; but I guess it's something big and heavy—and that it fell on every one of her children, as fast as they came, and killed 'em."