“Not Mr. Allen? You don't mean Mr. Allen, Lucinda?”
“What other boarder have you had? I've known about it for a long time. Hannah and me both have known, but we never opened our lips, and I don't want it to go any further now.”
“How did you find out?”
“By keeping my eyes and ears open. How does anybody find out anything?”
“I don't believe Mr. Allen ever once thought of her,” said Sylvia, and there was resentment in her voice.
“Of course he didn't. Maybe he'll take a shine to that girl you've got with you now.”
“Neither one of them has even thought of such a thing,” declared Sylvia, and her voice was almost violent.
“Well, I don't know,” Lucinda said, indifferently. “I have had too much to look out for of my own affairs since the girl came to know anything about that. I only thought of their being in the same house. I always had sort of an idea myself that maybe Lucy Ayres would be the one.”
“I hadn't,” said Sylvia. “Not but she—well, she looked real sick to-day. She didn't look fit to stand up there and sing. I should think her mother would be worried about her. And she don't sing half as well as you do.”
“Yes, she does,” replied Lucinda. “She sings enough sight better than I do.”