light, and--Mag Monahan, she walked right out with it!

At least, she'd got beyond the inner doors when I tapped her on the
shoulder.

"I beg pardon, madam." My best style, Mag.

She pulled herself up haughtily and blinked at me. She was a little,
thin mummy of a woman, just wrapped away in silks and velvets, but on
the inside of that nervous, little old body of hers there must have
been some spring of good material that wasn't all unwound yet.

She stood blinking at me without a word.

"That lace. You haven't paid for it," I said.

Her short-sighted eyes fell from my face to the collar she held in her
hand. Her yellow face grew ghastly.

"Oh, mercy! You--you don't--"

"I am a detective for the store, and--"

"But--"

"Sh! We don't like any noise made about these things, and you yourself
wouldn't enjoy--"

"Do you know who I am, young woman?" She fumbled in her satchel and
passed a card to me.

Glory be! Guess, Mag. Oh, you'd never guess, you dear old Mag!
Besides, you haven't got the acquaintance in high society that Nance
Olden can boast.

+--------------------------------+
| Mrs. MILLS D. VAN WAGENEN |
+--------------------------------+

Oh--Mag! Shame on you not to know the name even of the Bishop of the
great state of--yes, the lean, short little Bishop with a little white
beard, and the softest eye and the softest heart and--my very own
Bishop, Nancy Olden's Bishop. And this was his wife.

Tut--tut, Mag! Of course not. A bishop's wife may be a kleptomaniac;
it's only Cruelty girls that really steal from stores.

"I've met the Bishop, Mrs. Van Wagenen." I didn't say how--she
wouldn't appreciate that story.

"And he was once very kind to me. But he would be the first to tell me
to do my duty now. I'll do it as quietly as I can for his sake. But
you must come with me or I must arrest--"

She put up a shaking hand. Dear little old guy!

"Don't--don't say it! It's all a mistake, which can be rectified in a
moment. I've been trying to match this piece of lace for years. I got
it at Malta when--when Mills and I--on our honeymoon. When I saw it
there on the counter I was so delighted--I never thought--I intended
taking it to the light to be sure the pattern was the same, my eyesight
is so wretched--and when you spoke to me it was the first inkling I had
that I had really taken it without paying! You certainly understand,"
she pleaded in agitation. "I have no n