This done she retraced her steps, and went directly up to her own room.

She found that Mrs. Montague had returned from making her calls, and was dressing for dinner.

She seemed a little disturbed about something, and finally it came out that the trip down the Mississippi would have to be delayed for a day or two longer than she had anticipated, as one of her friends was not quite well enough to start immediately.

Mona was very glad to learn this, for she was sure that she should hear from Ray and receive the piece of dress goods; her only fear was that the Waltons might not remain at the hotel long enough for her to find an opportunity to fit the piece into the rent, to ascertain if it belonged there.

The earnestly desired letter reached her the next evening.  Ray had been very expeditious.  Receiving Mona’s dispatch just before the southward mail closed, he had hastily inclosed the piece of cloth, with a few words, in an envelope, and so there was no delay.

She was certain, as she examined it, that it was exactly the same color as the dress she had seen the day before, and reasonably sure regarding the texture; but the great question now to be answered was:  Would it fit the rent?

“Now I must find the dress, if possible, when the woman is wearing something else,” Mona mused, with a troubled face, and beginning to think she had undertaken a matter too difficult to be carried out.  “Perhaps she has no other dress here; how, then, am I going to prove my suspicion true, or otherwise?”

She knew that she could go to the authorities, tell her story, and have the woman and dress forcibly examined; but she could not bear to do anything that would make herself conspicuous, and it would be very disagreeable to carry the affair so far and then find she had made a lamentable mistake.

“If Ray were only here he would know what to do,” she murmured, “but he isn’t, and I must do the best I can without him.  I must find out where the woman rooms.  I must examine that dress!”

Fortune favored her in an unexpected way the very next morning.

The chambermaid who had charge of the floor on which their rooms were located, came, as usual, to put them in order, but with a badly swollen face, around which she had bound a handkerchief.

“Are you sick?” Mona asked, in a tone of sympathy, for the girl’s heavy eyes and languid manner appealed very strongly to her kind heart.

“I have a toothache, miss,” the girl said, with a heavy sigh.  “I never slept a wink last night, it pained me so.”

“I am very sorry, and of course you cannot feel much like work to-day, if you had no sleep,” Mona said, pityingly.

“Indeed I don’t—­I can hardly hold my head up; but the work’s got to be done all the same,” was the weary reply.

“Cannot you get some one to substitute for you while you have your tooth taken out and get a little rest?” Mona kindly inquired.