“But what is it?”
“I don’t know, sir; but it’s queer.”
He looked at her wrinkled old face, where now the mouth was drawn in as if she had pulled up her lips with puckering-strings lest some secret escape. He smiled at her important manner, and, leaning his elbow on the mantel, prepared for the slow process of getting at what the woman really meant. It proved in the event less laborious than usual, and he reflected that the directness with which Abby gave her information was sufficient indication of the seriousness with which she regarded it.
“Miss Alice ain’t right, sir. She does what she don’t know.”
“What do you mean?” he demanded, really startled.
“She wrote a letter to you last night, and then instead of mailing it she cut it all up into teenty tonty pieces, postage stamp and all; and then said she did n’t know who did it.”
Carroll stared at the woman. Whimsies and mysteries were alike so foreign to Alice that his first and natural thought was that Abby had lost her mind.
“It’s true, sir, every word,” Abby insisted, answering his unspoken incredulity. “She did just ’s I say.”
“If she said she did n’t know who did it,” the young man said sharply, “she did n’t know.”
“Of course she did n’t know. That ’s what’s queer.”