at that, I would have
visited Mr. Cox's store before I slept, but as it was I felt obliged to
wait till Monday. Meanwhile I had before me the still more important
interview with Mrs. Desberger.

As I had no reason to think that my visiting any number in Ninth Street
would arouse suspicion in the police, I rode there quite boldly the next
day, and with Lena at my side, entered the house of Mrs. Bertha
Desberger.

For this trip I had dressed myself plainly, and drawn over my eyes--and
the puffs which I still think it becoming in a woman of my age to
wear--a dotted veil, thick enough to conceal my features, without
robbing me of that aspect of benignity necessary to the success of my
mission. Lena wore her usual neat gray dress, and looked the picture of
all the virtues.

A large brass door-plate, well rubbed, was the first sign vouchsafed us
of the respectability of the house we were about to enter; and the
parlor, when we were ushered into it, fully carried out the promise thus
held forth on the door-step. It was respectable, but in wretched taste
as regards colors. I, who have the nicest taste in such matters, looked
about me in dismay as I encountered the greens and blues, the crimsons
and the purples which everywhere surrounded me.

But I was not on a visit to a temple of art, and resolutely shutting my
eyes to the offending splendor about me--worsted splendor, you
understand,--I waited with subdued expectation for the lady of the
house.

She came in presently, bedecked in a flowered gown that was an epitome
of the blaze of colors everywhere surrounding us; but her face was a
good one, and I saw that I had neither guile nor over-much shrewdness to
contend with.

She had seen the coach at the door, and she was all smiles and flutter.

"You have come for the poor girl who stopped here a few days ago," she
began, glancing from my face to Lena's with an equally inquiring air,
which in itself would have shown her utter ignorance of social
distinctions if I had not bidden Lena to keep at my side and hold her
head up as if she had business there as well as myself.

"Yes," returned I, "we have. Lena here, has lost a relative (which was
true), and knowing no other way of finding her, I suggested the
insertion of an advertisement in the paper. You read the description
given, of course. Has the person answering it been in this house?"

"Yes; she came on the morning of the eighteenth. I remember it because
that was th