you shouldn't be told anything about it."

"Never!" cried Daisy, much mortified.

"Yes," went on her stepmother ruthlessly. "You just ask your father
over there if it isn't true."

"'Tain't a healthy thing to speak overmuch about such happenings,"
said Bunting heavily.

"If I was Joe," went on Mrs. Bunting, quickly pursuing her advantage,
"I shouldn't want to talk about such horrid things when I comes in
to have a quiet chat with friends. But the minute he comes in that
poor young chap is set upon--mostly, I admit, by your father," she
looked at her husband severely. "But you does your share, too,
Daisy! You asks him this, you asks him that--he's fair puzzled
sometimes. It don't do to be so inquisitive."

******

And perhaps because of this little sermon on Mrs. Bunting's part
when young Chandler did come in again that evening, very little was
said of the new Avenger murder.

Bunting made no reference to it at all, and though Daisy said a
word, it was but a word. And Joe Chandler thought he had never
spent a pleasanter evening in his life--for it was he and Daisy
who talked all the time, their elders remaining for the most part
silent.