Solving the Riddle

At last, however, she abandoned further attempt to solve the riddle unaided, and decided to question her housekeeper.

"Was it the same man who brought those trunks--I mean the same man who--brought me here?" she demanded sharply.

"It surely was," replied Mrs. Ransford, desisting for a moment from her efforts to bestow a pile of dainty shoes into a night-dress case of elaborate drawn thread work. "An' a nice mess he's got things in. Jest look at 'em all tossed about, same as you might toss slap-jacks, as the sayin' is. It's a mercy of heaven, an' no thanks to him, you've got a rag fit to wear. It surely ain't fer me to say it, but it's real lucky I'm here to put things right for you. Drat them shoes! I don't guess I'll ever git 'em all into this bag, miss--ma'm--I mean miss, mum."

Something of the tragedy of her wardrobe became evident to the girl and she went to the rescue.

"I'm sorry, but they don't go in there," she said, feeling that an apology was due for her interference in such well-intended efforts. "That's--you see, that's my sleeping-suit case," she added gently.

"Sleepin'-soot?" A pair of round, wondering eyes stared out through the old woman's glasses.

The girl pointed at the silk trousers and jacket lying just inside the nearest trunk, and the farm-wife picked them up gingerly, letting them unfold as she did so. Just for one moment she inspected them, then she hurriedly let them drop back into the trunk as though they were some dangerous reptile, and, folding her arms, glared into the girl's smiling face in comical reproach.