Laura agreed amiably. In truth, she wanted to get her mind away from its substratum of unpleasant and unusual thought for which she could not account. Nothing could take her farther from it than Mrs. Bahrr's small talk about people and things. She knew better than to accept the gossip for facts, but there was no courteous way of stopping Stellar now, anyhow. One had to meet her on the threshold for that. "'Tain't always the little, petty thievin' sneak gits the things, even if they do git the blame of it. No, 'tain't." Mrs. Bahrr rambled on, fixing her hook eyes square into her hostess at just the right moment for emphasis. "I knowed the same thing happen twice. Once back in Indiany, where I come from--jist a little town on White River. There was a girl come to that town from"--hesitatingly--"from Californy; said to be rich, an' dressed it all right; had every man there crazy about her, an' her spendin' money like water pours over a mill-wheel in March. Tell you who she looked like--jist a mite like this Miss Swim stayin' at your house now--big eyes an' innocent-lookin' like her, but this Californy girl was a lot the best-lookin' of the two--a lot. An' she was rich--or so everybody thought. This un ain't. I got that out of Ponk 'fore he knowed it. An'--well, to make a story end somewhere this side of eternity, I never could bear them ramblin' kind of folks--first thing folks knowed a rich old bachelor got animated with her, just clear _animated_, an' literally swore by her. An'--well, things got to missin' a little an' a little more, an', sir--well"--slowly and impressively--"it turned out at last that this girl who they said was so rich was a _thief_, takin' whatever she could get, 'cause she was hard up an' too proud to go back to Oregon to tell her folks. An' that rich bachelor jist defended her ever' way--'d say he took things accidental, an' then help her to git 'em back, or git away with them--it was like a real drammy jist like they acted out in the picture show t'other night down-town. There was lots of talk, an' it nearly broke his sister's--I mean his mother's--heart. But, pshaw! that all happened years ago down in Indiany on the White River. It's all forgot long 'go. Guess I'd never thought of it again if this Swim girl hadn't come here with her big eyes, remindin' me of that old forgot eppisode, an' your losin' your purse mysterious. How things happen, year in an' year out, place after place, the same kind of things; good folks everywhere, though--everywhere. I was in York's office late yistyday afternoon, an' this girl comes in. Too bad she's so poor an' so pretty." There was a venomous twist of the hooks at that word "pretty."