Page 143 - A Little Bush Maid

"Why, you’re very quiet, dearie." Mrs. Brown glanced inquiringly at her
companion. "A minute ago you was chatterin’, and now you’ve gone down

flat, like old soda-water. Ts anything wrong?"

"No, T’m all right, Brownie. T was only thinking," said Norah, forcing a
smile.

"Too many sweeties, T expect," said Mrs. Brown, laying a heavy hand on
the bag and impounding it for future reference. "Mustn’t have you get

indigestion, an’ your Pa comin’ home to-morrow."

Norah laughed.

"Now, did you ever know me to have indigestion in my life?" she queried.

"Well, perhaps not," Mrs. Brown admitted. "Still, you never can tell; it don’
do to pride oneself on anything. Tf it ain’t indigestion, you’ve been thinking

too much of this narsty murder."

Norah flicked the off pony deliberately with her whip.

"Darkie is getting disgracefully lazy," she said. "He’s not doing a bit of the

work. Nigger’s worth two of him." The injured Darkie shot forward with a
bound, and Mrs. Brown grabbed the side of the buggy hastily, and in her

fears at the pace for the ensuing five minutes forgot her too inconvenient
cross-examination.

Norah settled back into silence, her forehead puckered with a frown. She
had never in her careless little life been confronted by such a problem as the

one that now held her thoughts. That the startling similarity between her
new-made friend and the description of the murderer should fasten upon
her mind, was unavoidable. She struggled against the idea as disloyal, but

finally decided to think it out calmly.

The descriptions tallied. So much was certain. The verbal likeness of one
man was an exact word painting of the other, so far as it went, "though," as