"Seen her? I have stopped for a week in the same house. A very nice
lodging-house on the Spa front, too. The girl's well enough off. The
poverty plea fails. She goes about in good rooms and carries a mother
with her."

"That's well," I answered. "That looks all right."

"Oh, yes, she's quite presentable: has the manners of a lady whenever
she chooses. But the chief point is this: she laid her letters every day
on the table in the passage outside her door for post--laid them all
in a row, so that when one claimed one's own one couldn't help seeing
them."

"Well, that was open and aboveboard," I continued, beginning to fear we
had hastily misjudged Miss Sissie Montague.

"Very open--too much so, in fact; for I was obliged to note the fact
that she wrote two letters regularly every day of her life--'to my two
mashes,' she explained one afternoon to a young man who was with her as
she laid them on the table. One of them was always addressed to Cecil
Holsworthy, Esq."

"And the other?"

"Wasn't."

"Did you note the name?" I asked, interested.

"Yes; here it is." She handed me a slip of paper.