"Perhaps not," she said, "but he is a good boy. His mother sometimes works for us; she does quite heavy jobs of sewing, and Billy brings them up by train. He was here a little more than a week ago, and I asked him how he was getting on at school, and if he had a good teacher, and he said the man was pretty good. But I want to know about the bear. How in the world did you happen to be leading a bear?"
I related the ursine incident, which amused her very much, and, as she was a wheelwoman herself, she commiserated with me sincerely on the damage to my machine.
"So you stopped at the Holly Sprig?" she said. "And how did you like the mistress of that little inn?"
I replied that I had found her very interesting.
"Yes, she is an interesting woman," said my companion, "and a very pretty one, too. Some people wonder why she continues to keep the inn, but perhaps she has to. You know, her husband was murdered."
'He Soon Felt That he Was Under Control'
"No, I did not!" I exclaimed, in surprise. "I knew he was not living—but murdered! That is dreadful! How did that happen?"
"Nobody knows," she answered. "They had not been married very long—I do not know how long—when he was killed. He went to New York on business by himself, and did not come back. They were searching for him days and days—ever so long, and they could find no clew. At last—it may have been a month afterwards—or perhaps it was more—it was found that he had been murdered. His body had been discovered, and was supposed to be that of somebody else, and had been buried in whatever place the authorities buried people in such cases. Then it was too late to get it or to identify it, or to do anything. Wasn't that perfectly awful?"