opped the little basket that I had noticed hanging
from her wrist; which basket had promptly disgorged its entire contents
on the floor.

Now every one must have noticed the demon of agility that seems to enter
into an inanimate object when it is dropped, and the apparently
intelligent malice with which it discovers, and rolls into, the most
inaccessible places. Here was a case in point. This particular basket
had contained materials for Oriental bead-work; and no sooner had it
reached the floor than each item of its contents appeared to become
possessed of a separate and particular devil impelling it to travel at
headlong speed to some remote and unapproachable corner as distant as
possible from its fellows.

As the only man--and almost the only person--near, the duty of
salvage-agent manifestly devolved upon me; and down I went, accordingly,
on my hands and knees, regardless of a nearly new pair of trousers, to
grope under tables, chairs and settles in reach of the scattered
treasure. A ball of the thick thread or twine I recovered from a dark
and dirty corner after a brief interview with the sharp corner of a
settle, and a multitude of the large beads with which this infernal
industry is carried on I gathered from all parts of the compass, coming
forth at length (quadrupedally) with a double handful of the
treasure-trove and a very lively appreciation of the resistant qualities
of a cast-iron table-stand when applied to the human cranium.

The owner of the lost and found property was greatly distressed by the
accident and the trouble it had caused me; in fact she was quite
needlessly agitated about it. The hand which held the basket into which
I poured the rescued trash trembled visibly, and the brief glance that I
bestowed on her as she murmured her thanks and apologies--with a very
slight foreign accent--showed me that she was excessively pale. That
much I could see plainly in spite of the rather dim light in this part
of the shop and the beaded veil that covered her face; and I could also
see that she was a rather remarkable looking woman, with a great mass of
harsh, black hair and very broad black eyebrows that nearly met above
her nose and contrasted strikingly with the dead white of her skin. But,
of course, I did not look at her intently. Having returned her property
and received her acknowledgments, I resumed my seat and left her to go
on her way.

I had once more grasped the handle of the tea-pot when I