Lottie Ann and Uncle Purchase now arrived to add to the festivity of the occasion.
"I guess nobody need worry over that pair's paying anybody any money they get their hands on," observed Mrs. Ray, fetching a chair for Uncle Purchase. "What are you going to do about it, when they come down and want to go out to walk next time, Nellie? Give 'em your shawls the same as usual, I suppose."
"Why, we've got to let 'em go or they can't skip and make themselves liable to arrest, of course, but the old lady said she could surely get money by to-morrow, and Jack has hired a boy to hang around the house and if they go out, track them."
"My sakes, ain't it interesting?" said Mrs. Dunstall. "And to think that they're up there this minute and have no idea of it all."
"I dare say they have been laughing at you all the time they were off chestnutting our chestnuts," said Mrs. Wiley. "My husband says if they'd sold all they've picked up, they could have paid their board honestly."
"But they weren't honest, you see," said Mrs. Ray; "honest people all get letters, or anyhow they buy postal cards of the Falls. And you ought to have taken my word for it when I suspected them, Nellie; those case-knives ought to have set you on to them."
"Well, well, and us seeing them walking all around for a fortnight," said Mrs. Dunstall; "and we so innocent, and they swindlers, and you boarding them for nothing,—dear, dear!"
"Well," said Mrs. Ray, "here's your paper, Nellie; what will happen next, I wonder?"
"Yes, I do, too," said Pinkie.
"You'd better all come down about five, and see if they did go out," said Mrs. O'Neil, with the air of extending an invitation to a party. "Why, that old lady told me that she'd been to the Boston Academy of Music."