etter, some more methodical method. She would not have torn off a
corner of thick wrapping-paper upon which to keep her books. There was
but one answer, memorandum!

All right, memorandum it was, for the time being. Now then, in what
business could she have been engaged where she found it necessary to
keep memoranda of such inconsiderable sums? Oh, Lord! There were a
million! Paul had been walking on thin ice from the start; now it gave
way beneath him, so he abandoned this train of thought and went back
once more to the bundle of clothes. Surely there was a clue concealed
somewhere among them, if only he could find it. They were poor
clothes, and yet, judging by their cut, he fancied the girl had looked
exceedingly well in them--nay, even modish. She had evidently spent
much time on them, as the beautiful needlework attested. At this point
Anderson's mind ran out on to thin ice again, so he reverted to the
girl herself for the _n_th time. She was Canadian, her hands were
useful, there were tiny blood-blisters on the left thumb and index
finger, and the skin was roughened and torn minutely, evidently by
some sharp instrument. What instrument? He answered the question
almost before he had voiced it. A needle, of course!

Paul stopped in his walk so abruptly that a man poked him in the back
with a ladder; but he paid no heed, for his mind was leaping. That
thickening of the skin, those tiny scratches, those blood-blisters,
those garments without mark of maker, yet so stylish in cut and so
carefully made, and furthermore that memorandum:

9.25
6.25
----
3.00

"Why, she was a dressmaker!" said Anderson, out loud. He went back
over his reasoning, but it held good--so good that he would have
wagered his own clothes that he was right. Yes, and those figures
represented some trifling purchases or commission--for a customer, no
doubt.

It followed naturally that she was not a Buffalo dressmaker, else she
would have been identified long since; nor was it likely that she came
from any city, for her clothes had not given him the impression of
being city-made, and, moreover, the publicity given to the case
through the press, even allowing for the fact that the printed
description had been vague, would have been sure to uncover her
identity. No, she was a Canadian country seamstress.

The young man's mind went back a few years to his boyhood on a
Michigan farm, where visiting dressmakers used to come and stay by the