"I don't understand, for my part, why she is arrested at all," he said, grimly.
Horace laughed as grimly.

"Because there is no one else to arrest, and the situation seems to call for some action," he replied.
"But they must have some reason." "All the reason was the girl's (Hannah Simmons, I believe her name is) seeming to be keeping something back, and saying that Miss Hart gave Miss Farrel some essence of peppermint last night, and the fact that the stable-boy seems to be in love with Hannah, and jealous and eager to do her mistress some mischief, and has hinted at knowing something, which I don't believe, for my part, he does." "It is all nonsense," said Sylvia.

"Whatever Hannah Simmons is keeping to herself, it isn't killing another woman, or knowing that Lucinda Hart did it.

There was no reason for either of those women to kill Miss Farrel, and folks don't do such awful things without reason, unless they're crazy, and it isn't likely that Lucinda and Hannah have both come down crazy together, and I know it ain't in the Hart family, or the Simmons.

What if poor Lucinda did give Miss Farrel some essence of peppermint?
I gave some to Henry night before last, when he had gas in his stomach, and it didn't kill him." "What they claim is that arsenic was in the peppermint," said Horace, in an odd, almost indifferent voice.
"Arsenic in the peppermint!" repeated Sylvia.