"That's so; but we might find a pretty sorrel colt somewhere, and make her a present of it in place, of Sylph--if we only had the money." If it had not been for Willis, I rather think that we should have gone to the old Squire that very evening and told him the whole story; but the legal consequences of the affair troubled us, and since they affected Willis more than they affected us we did not like to say anything. Week after week went by without our being able to bring ourselves to confess. The concealment was a source of daily uneasiness to us; although we rarely spoke of the affair to each other, it was always on our minds. Whenever we did speak of it together, Addison would say, "We've got to straighten that out," or, "I hate to have that colt scrape hanging on us in this way." We tried several times to get Willis's consent to our telling the old Squire; but he had brooded over the thing so long that he had convinced himself that if his act became known he would surely be sent to the penitentiary. So there the matter lay covered up all summer until one afternoon in September, when the old Squire drove to the village to contract for his apple barrels, and I went with him to get a pair of boots. Just as we were starting for home we met Mrs. Kennard. Previously she had often visited us at the farm, but since the death of Sylph she had not come near us. The old Squire tried to-day to be more cordial than ever, but Mrs. Kennard answered him rather coldly. She started on, but turned suddenly and asked whether we had learned anything more about the death of those colts. "And, oh, do you think that poor Sylph lay there, suffering, a long time?" she exclaimed, with tears in her eyes. "I keep thinking of it." "No, we have learned nothing more," the old Squire said gently. "It was a mysterious affair; but I think all three of the colts died suddenly, within a few minutes." That was all he could say to comfort her, and Mrs. Kennard walked slowly away with her handkerchief at her eyes. It was painful, and I sat there in the wagon feeling like a mean little malefactor. "Very singular about those colts," the old Squire remarked partly to me, partly to himself, as we drove on. "A strange thing." Sudden resolution nerved me. I was sick of skulking. "Sir," said I, swallowing hard several times, "I know what killed those colts!" The old Squire glanced quickly at me, started to speak, but, seeing how greatly agitated I was, kindly refrained from questioning me. "It was fox pills!" I blurted out. "Willis Murch and Ad and I had a fox bed up there last winter. We never thought of it when the colts were put in. They ate the poison pills." The old Squire made no comment, and I plunged into further details. "That accounts for it, then," he said at last. I had expected him to speak plainly to me about those fox pills, but he merely asked me what I thought of using poison in trapping.