ces, have
disappeared mysteriously from her house and her friends, the police
would have found the greatest difficulty in composing the necessary
description of the missing lady. The acutest observer could have
discovered nothing that was noticeable or characteristic in her personal
appearance. The pen of the present writer portrays her in despair by a
series of negatives. She was not young, she was not old; she was neither
tall nor short, nor stout nor thin; nobody could call her features
attractive, and nobody could call them ugly; there was nothing in her
voice, her expression, her manner, or her dress that differed in any
appreciable degree from the voice, expression, manner, and dress of
five hundred thousand other single ladies of her age and position in
the world. If you had asked her to describe herself, she would have
answered, "I am a gentlewoman"; and if you had further inquired which
of her numerous accomplishments took highest rank in her own esteem, she
would have replied, "My powers of conversation." For the rest, she was
Miss Pink, of South Morden; and, when that has been said, all has been
said.

"Pray be seated, sir. We have had a beautiful day, after the
long-continued wet weather. I am told that the season is very
unfavorable for wall-fruit. May I offer you some refreshment after
your journey?" In these terms and in the smoothest of voices, Miss Pink
opened the interview.

Mr. Troy made a polite reply, and added a few strictly conventional
remarks on the beauty of the neighborhood. Not even a lawyer could sit
in Miss Pink's presence, and hear Miss Pink's conversation, without
feeling himself called upon (in the nursery phrase) to "be on his best
behavior".

"It is extremely kind of you, Mr. Troy, to favor me with this visit,"
Miss Pink resumed. "I am well aware that the time of professional
gentlemen is of especial value to them; and I will therefore ask you
to excuse me if I proceed abruptly to the subject on which I desire to
consult your experience."

Here the lady modestly smoothed out her dress over her knees, and the
lawyer made a bow. Miss Pink's highly-trained conversation had perhaps
one fault--it was not, strictly speaking, conversation at all. In its
effect on her hearers it rather resembled the contents of a fluently
conventional letter, read aloud.

"The circumstances under which my niece Isabel has left Lady Lydiard's
house," Miss Pink proceeded, "are so indescribably painful--I