of persuading her
aunt to swallow a cup of tea,--what a different tea-taking to that they
had been looking forward to!--and in five minutes Auntie and Sylvia were
driving along the streets which the former had but so lately passed
through.

"Poor Molly," said Auntie.

"She will be getting up her hopes and expecting us to bring back good
news," said Sylvia. "Well, we _may_ find it, Auntie. They say honest
people _sometimes_ take things at once to the nearest police-office."

But this small grain of hope was quickly crushed. The "commissaire de
police" was civil, but not encouraging. The ladies would do better to
wait a day or two and then apply to the "Prefecture de Police," in other
words, the central office, where waifs and strays of private property,
should they chance to fall into honest hands, were pretty sure to be
eventually deposited.

"A day or two," repeated Auntie, appalled. "Can I do nothing at once?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "That was as Madame chose. It would do no
harm to write at once, describing the lost articles and giving her
address. But as for hearing of them at once, that was more than
improbable. It was the eve of the New Year--the worst day of all the
year on which to have such a misfortune; everybody respectable was busy
with their own affairs; and yet there were lots of beggars and such like
about the streets. If--even supposing," as if the supposition were of
the wildest--"that the watch had fallen into honest hands, a week or
ten days would probably pass before Madame would have news of it."

"And if it were deposited _here_," said Auntie timidly--"that does
sometimes happen, I suppose?"

"If it were deposited here, it would be as if it were not here," said
the commissaire sententiously. "That is to say we should send it on to
the Prefecture. I have not even the right to tell you if it is at this
moment here or not, though to give you pleasure," he proceeded with
unconscious sarcasm, "I will declare to you that it is _not_."

"Then there is no use my returning here again to inquire?"

"Not the least--write to the Prefecture making your statement, and call
there four or five days hence--no use going sooner," said the
commissaire with a wave of his hand in token of dismissal. So Auntie and
Sylvia, with sinking hearts, turned sadly away.

"Little does he understand what four or five days of suspense seem to
me," said Auntie.

"To _us_ too, dear Auntie," said Sylvia, squeezing Aun