“Are you Mrs. Pitman?” she asked.

“I don’t need anything to-day,” I said, trying to shut the door.  And at that minute something in the basket cheeped.  Young women selling poultry are not common in our neighborhood.  “What have you there?” I asked more agreeably.

“Chicks, day-old chicks, but I’m not trying to sell you any.  I—­may I come in?”

It was dawning on me then that perhaps this was Eliza Shaeffer.  I led her back to the dining-room, with Peter sniffing at the basket.

“My name is Shaeffer,” she said.  “I’ve seen your name in the papers, and I believe I know something about Jennie Brice.”

Eliza Shaeffer’s story was curious.  She said that she was postmistress at Horner, and lived with her mother on a farm a mile out of the town, driving in and out each day in a buggy.

On Monday afternoon, March the fifth, a woman had alighted at the station from a train, and had taken luncheon at the hotel.  She told the clerk she was on the road, selling corsets, and was much disappointed to find no store of any size in the town.  The woman, who had registered as Mrs. Jane Bellows, said she was tired and would like to rest for a day or two on a farm.  She was told to see Eliza Shaeffer at the post-office, and, as a result, drove out with her to the farm after the last mail came in that evening.

Asked to describe her—­she was over medium height, light-haired, quick in her movements, and wore a black and white striped dress with a red collar, and a hat to match.  She carried a small brown valise that Miss Shaeffer presumed contained her samples.

Mrs. Shaeffer had made her welcome, although they did not usually take boarders until June.  She had not eaten much supper, and that night she had asked for pen and ink, and had written a letter.  The letter was not mailed until Wednesday.  All of Tuesday Mrs. Bellows had spent in her room, and Mrs. Shaeffer had driven to the village in the afternoon with word that she had been crying all day, and bought some headache medicine for her.

On Wednesday morning, however, she had appeared at breakfast, eaten heartily, and had asked Miss Shaeffer to take her letter to the post-office.  It was addressed to Mr. Ellis Howell, in care of a Pittsburgh newspaper!

That night when Miss Eliza went home, about half past eight, the woman was gone.  She had paid for her room and had been driven as far as Thornville, where all trace of her had been lost.  On account of the disappearance of Jennie Brice being published shortly after that, she and her mother had driven to Thornville, but the station agent there was surly as well as stupid.  They had learned nothing about the woman.