apidly walking two
blocks she swept across the street, and after having waited for Bristol
to come up with her, plunged into the little restaurant under Washington
Hall, with my operative close at her heels.

The sudden entrance of the couple caused a great commotion in the quaint
little eating-room, and the drowsy customers smiled when they saw the
unaccustomed form of the woman whom the Misses Grim--Tabitha, Amanda and
Hannah--had taken no trouble to prevent being known as her deadly enemy.

Tabitha, the most ancient, at once bristled up and took a position
behind her neat counter, her wrinkled head trembling with so much
excitement that her sparse curls created a kind of quivering nimbus
about it.

"Well, ma'am and what can _I_ do for _you_?" asked Tabitha with a flaunt
of her head and a sarcastic tinge in her voice.

Mrs. Winslow got to the counter in two or three quick jumps or starts,
and asked, husky with rage, "I--I just want to know which one of you old
straws sent that box to me?"

"Box to _you_!" jerked out Amanda, the next less ancient of the Misses
Grim, who had just entered and at once stopped stock still to catch Mrs.
Winslow's remark; "box to you? Tush!--box to nobody!" and she too sidled
in behind the counter to reinforce, and tremble with, her very old
sister.

"Oh, you can't play your innocence on me!" retorted Mrs. Winslow very
violently. "You wear very white collars, and very black caps and very
straight dresses, and look very saintly, but you're just three old
witches; that's what you are!"

"Pooh, pooh!" snorted Tabitha and Amanda hysterically.

"Pooh, pooh! if you like; but if I find out which one of you sent that
box, I'll--I'll shake every bone in her old body into a match!" shouted
Mrs. Winslow, dancing up and down against the counter and working her
fingers savagely.

"Match?" responded Hannah, the least ancient and most fiery of the three
virgins, and who entered at this critical moment; "match indeed! you're
a match for anything villainous!" and then she too trotted behind the
counter to throw the weight of her presence into the conflict.

By this time the interested customers had gathered around, and people
from the street, noticing the unwonted enthusiasm awakened in the
Washington Hall restaurant, were rapidly collecting upon the outside and
flattening their curious noses against the intervening panes.

Mrs. Winslow could no more control herself than could the old maids, and