y two years, and
that during all that time she had never had any trouble before. About
two weeks ago, she said, her mistress lost a hundred dollars.

"She missed it from her drawer," the girl told me, "and she asked me
about it, but I knew nothing of it. The next thing I knew, Nancy Luther
told Mrs. Naseby that she saw me take the money from her drawer--that
she watched me through the keyhole. Then they went to my trunk, and they
found twenty-five dollars of the missing money there. But, oh, sir, I
never took it--and somebody else put that money there!"

I then asked her if she suspected any one.

"I don't know," she said, "who could have done it but Nancy. She has
never liked me, because she thought I was treated better than she was.
She is the cook, and I was the chamber-maid."

She pointed Nancy Luther out to me. She was a stout, bold-faced girl,
somewhere about five-and-twenty years old, with a low forehead, small
gray eyes, a pug nose and thick lips.

"Oh, sir, can you help me?" my client asked, in a fearful whisper.

"Nancy Luther, did you say that girl's name was?" I asked, for a new
light had broken in upon me.

"Yes, sir."

"Is there any other girl of that name about here?"

"No, sir."

"Then rest easy. I'll try hard to save you."

I left the courtroom, and went to the prosecuting attorney and asked him
for the letters I had handed him--the ones that had been stolen from the
mail-bag. He gave them to me, and, having selected one, I returned the
rest, and told him I would see that he had the one I kept before night.
I then returned to the courtroom, and the case went on.

Mrs. Naseby resumed her testimony. She said she entrusted her room to
the prisoner's care, and that no one else had access there save herself.
Then she described about missing the money, and closed by telling how
she found twenty-five dollars of it in the prisoner's trunk. She could
swear it was the identical money she had lost, it being in two tens and
one five-dollar bill.

"Mrs. Naseby," said I, "when you first missed your money, had you any
reason to believe that the prisoner had it?"

"No, sir," she answered.

"Had you ever before detected her in any dishonesty?"

"No, sir."

"Should you have thought of searching her trunk, had not Nancy Luther
advised you and informed you?"

"No, sir."

Mrs. Naseby then left the stand, and Nancy Luther took her place. She
came up with a bold look, and upon me she cast a defiant gl