"You don't accuse him!" retorted Miss Jo, with sneering emphasis. "That's very good of you, indeed, Mr. Blake! Oh no, you don't accuse, but you stand up there, like—like a cold-blooded kangaroo" (Miss Blake could think of no better simile in the heat of the moment) "fixing your collar, while all Speckport's down on him, and no one to take his part! You won't accuse him, indeed! Hadn't you better run up and do it now? Where's Natty? Answer me that."
Miss Jo turned so fiercely upon her brother with this query that Mr. Blake wilted at once.
"At home with her mother!"
"Poor dear girl!" and here Miss Jo softened into tears; "poor dear child! What a shock for her! How does she bear it?"
"She has been ill and hysterical ever since. They don't suppose she will be able to give evidence at the inquest."
"Poor dear Natty! And how does Mrs. Marsh take it?"
"Very hard. Betsy Ann had to run to the nearest druggist's for fourpence-worth of smelling-salts, and she has been rocking, and reading, and smelling at it ever since."
"Ah, poor dear!" said sympathetic Miss Jo, whose first fury had subsided. "Does she know they suspect Charley?"
"Of course not. Who would tell her that? Oh, I say, Joanna, you haven't heard that about Miss Rose, have you?"
"What about Miss Rose? Nobody suspects her of the murder, do they?"