"Winthrop," she said, "what was in the package that Madame Barras
carried away with her tonight?"

The query very greatly surprised me. I thought Madame Barras had
carried this package away with her several evenings before when I
had put her English bank-notes in my box at the local bank. My
sister added the explanation which I should have been embarrassed
to seek, at the moment.

"She asked me to put it somewhere, on Tuesday afternoon . . . .
It was forgotten, I suppose . . . . I laid it in a drawer of the
library table . . . . What did it contain?"

I managed an evasive reply, for the discovery opened
possibilities that disturbed me.

"Some certificates, I believe," I said.

My sister made a little pretended gesture of dismay.

"I should have been more careful; such things are of value."

Of value indeed! The certificates in Madame Barras' package,
that had lain about on the library table, were gold certificates
of the United States Treasury - ninety odd of them, each of a
value of one thousand dollars! My sister went:

"How oddly life has tossed her about . . . . She must have been
a mere infant at Miss Page's. The attachment of incoming tots to