or to any small town, if I had wanted to hide. I
think I should have gone around the corner and taken a room in my own
neighborhood, or have lost myself in some large city.

It was that same day that, since I did not go to Horner, Horner came
to me. The bell rang about three o'clock, and I answered it myself.
For, with times hard and only two or three roomers all winter, I had
not had a servant, except Terry to do odd jobs, for some months.

There stood a fresh-faced young girl, with a covered basket in her
hand.

"Are you Mrs. Pitman?" she asked.

"I don't need anything to-day," I said, trying to shut the door. And
at that minute something in the basket cheeped. Young women selling
poultry are not common in our neighborhood. "What have you there?" I
asked more agreeably.

"Chicks, day-old chicks, but I'm not trying to sell you any. I--may I
come in?"

It was dawning on me then that perhaps this was Eliza Shaeffer. I led
her back to the dining-room, with Peter sniffing at the basket.

"My name is Shaeffer," she said. "I've seen your name in the papers,
and I believe I know something about Jennie Brice."

Eliza Shaeffer's story was curious. She said that she was postmistress
at Horner, and lived with her mother on a farm a mile out of the town,
driving in and out each day in a buggy.

On Monday afternoon, March the fifth, a woman had alighted at the
station from a train, and had taken luncheon at the hotel. She
told the clerk she was on the road, selling corsets, and was much
disappointed to find no store of any size in the town. The woman, who
had registered as Mrs. Jane Bellows, said she was tired and would like
to rest for a day or two on a farm. She was told to see Eliza Shaeffer
at the post-office, and, as a result, drove out with her to the farm
after the last mail came in that evening.

Asked to describe her--she was over medium height, light-haired, quick
in her movements, and wore a black and white striped dress with a red
collar, and a hat to match. She carried a small brown valise that Miss
Shaeffer presumed contained her samples.

Mrs. Shaeffer had made her welcome, although they did not usually take
boarders until June. She had not eaten much supper, and that night she
had asked for pen and ink, and had written a letter. The letter was
not mailed until Wednesday. All of Tuesday Mrs. Bellows had spent in
her room, and Mrs. Shaeffer had driven to the village in the afternoon
with word that she h