“Well, I believe it. Liza Bascom’s no fool—”
“She’s worse, she’s a knave! And she hates little Austin, and she’d say anything, true or false, to harm the girl.”
“But, Salt, she says she saw Miss Austin, all in her fur coat and cap going cross lots to the Waring house Sunday evening—late.”
“Can she prove it?”
“I don’t know about that. But she saw her.”
“How does she know it was Miss Austin? It might have been somebody who looked like her.”
“You know those footprints.”
“The Jap’s?”
“You can’t say they’re the Jap’s. Miss Bascom says they’re the Austin girl’s.”
“Esther!” Old Saltonstall Adams rose in his wrath, “you ought to be ashamed of yourself to let that girl’s name get into the Waring matter at all. Even if she did go out Sunday night, if Miss Bascom did see her, you keep still about it. If that girl’s wrong, it’ll be discovered without our help. If she isn’t, we must not be the ones to bring her into notice.”