"Boston!" said Mrs. Dunstall with a sniff; "they never saw Boston. Not those two. Not much."
"Oh, but they have," said Mrs. O'Neil; "I know that they have, for I've been there myself, and we talked about it."
"Well, I guess Boston has its crooks as well as other places," said Mrs. Ray, pacifically; "I guess if we can harbor swindlers and not know it, Boston can, too."
"I wouldn't believe it," Mrs. O'Neil said again. "But these papers make me have to; you see, there's the names, and Hannah Adele, and no paper would dare to print that if it wasn't true."
"True! Of course it's true," said Mrs. Ray; "I never would be surprised over anything anybody 'd do that would wear brown laces in black shoes and go in out of the rain at a strange house at midnight."
"Did she have brown laces in black shoes?" asked Lottie Ann, in a tone penetrated with horror.
"She did, and what's more, she pinned herself together. I see the pins sticking out of her, time and again, when she come in to stand around and wait for mail like a honest person would. No man is ever going to marry a girl who bristles with pins like that,—it'll be a job I wouldn't like myself to be the sheriff and have to arrest her. He'd better look sharp where he lays his hand on that girl, I tell you."
"Will she really be arrested?" Lottie Ann cried.
"Why, I should hope so," said her mother.
"As a law-abiding citizen yourself, who may take boarders some day, you wouldn't wish her not to be, would you?" said Mrs. Ray.