l, when the door opened and the nurse entered the
room.

"Has the postman come?" asked Mrs. Milroy.

The nurse laid a letter on the bed without answering, and waited, with
unconcealed curiosity, to watch the effect which it produced on her
mistress.

Mrs. Milroy tore open the envelope the instant it was in her hand. A
printed paper appeared (which she threw aside), surrounding a letter
(which she looked at) in her own handwriting! She snatched up the
printed paper. It was the customary Post-office circular, informing her
that her letter had been duly presented at the right address, and that
the person whom she had written to was not to be found.

"Something wrong?" asked the nurse, detecting a change in her mistress's
face.

The question passed unheeded. Mrs. Milroy's writing-desk was on the
table at the bedside. She took from it the letter which the major's
mother had written to her son, and turned to the page containing
the name and address of Miss Gwilt's reference. "Mrs. Mandeville, 18
Kingsdown Crescent, Bayswater," she read, eagerly to herself, and then
looked at the address on her own returned letter. No error had been
committed: the directions were identically the same.

"Something wrong?" reiterated the nurse, advancing a step nearer to the
bed.

"Thank God--yes!" cried Mrs. Milroy, with a sudden outburst of
exultation. She tossed the Post-office circular to the nurse, and beat
her bony hands on the bedclothes in an ecstasy of anticipated triumph.
"Miss Gwilt's an impostor! Miss Gwilt's an impostor! If I die for it,
Rachel, I'll be carried to the window to see the police take her away!"

"It's one thing to say she's an impostor behind her back, and another
thing to prove it to her face," remarked the nurse. She put her hand
as she spoke into her apron pocket, and, with a significant look at her
mistress, silently produced a second letter.

"For me?" asked Mrs. Milroy.

"No!" said the nurse; "for Miss Gwilt."

The two women eyed each other, and understood each other without another
word.

"Where is she?" said Mrs. Milroy.

The nurse pointed in the direction of the park. "Out again, for another
walk before breakfast--by herself."

Mrs. Milroy beckoned to the nurse to stoop close over her. "Can you open
it, Rachel?" she whispered.

Rachel nodded.

"Can you close it again, so that nobody would know?"

"Can you spare the scarf that matches your pearl gray dress?" asked
Rachel.

"Take it!" s