“Only Maggie McFadden.”
Miss McFadden lived in the flat across the hall.
“You don’t think she could have taken the money, do you, mother?”
“I don’t want to think that she did,” replied Mrs. Hazard, mournfully.
“Maggie lost her position two weeks ago because there was some trouble about her accounts,” said Annie, slowly, as though an unpleasant suspicion was forcing itself in her mind.
The McFadden girl, who was somewhat airy and pert in her manners, was conspicuous in the neighborhood for the number and variety of her gowns and hats, and the gossips wondered where she got the money to pay for them all.
When approached on the subject she invariably said that Denny, her brother, made “slathers of dough on the races,” thereby intimating that that was the source which produced much of her finery; but many of her acquaintances knew Denny better than she had any idea of, and these persons rather doubted Miss Maggie’s statement.
At any rate, when she lost her position as cashier of a large packing house, the neighbors winked their eyes one at another and whispered, “I told you so.”
Mrs. Hazard was at no loss to understand what her daughter meant, and the sigh she uttered spoke her own thoughts as plainly as words.
“We never could accuse her,” continued Annie, dejectedly.