They fussed some still about sleeping with the windows open, especially the bald-headed men.  However, the bishop, who had been bald for thirty years, was getting a fine down all over the top of his head, and this encouraged the rest.  The bishop says it is nature’s instinct to protect itself from cold—­all animals have fur, and heavier fur in winter—­and he believed that it was the ultimate cure for baldness.  Men lose their hair on top, he said, because they wear hats, and so don’t need it.  But let the top of the head need protection, and lo, hair comes there.  Although, as Mr. Thoburn said, his nose was always cold in winter, and nature never did anything for it.

Mr. von Inwald was still there, and not troubling himself to be agreeable to any but the Jennings family.  He and Mr. Pierce carefully avoided each other, but I knew well enough that only policy kept them apart.  Both of them, you see, were working for something.

Miss Cobb came to the spring-house early Friday morning, and from the way she came in and shut the door I knew she had something on her mind.  She walked over to where I was polishing the brass railing around the spring—­it had been the habit of years, and not easy to break—­and stood looking at me and breathing hard.

“Minnie,” she exclaimed, “I have found the thief!”

“Lord have mercy!” I said, and dropped the brass polish.

“I have found the thief!” she repeated firmly.  “Minnie, our sins always find us out.”

“I guess they do,” I said shakily, and sat down on the steps to the spring.  “Oh, Miss Cobb, if only he would use a little bit of sense!”

“He?” she said.  “He nothing!  It’s that Summers woman I’m talking about, Minnie.  I knew that woman wasn’t what she ought to be the minute I set eyes on her.”

“The Summers woman!” I repeated.

Miss Cobb leaned over the railing and shook a finger in my face.

“The Summers woman,” she said.  “One of the chambermaids found my—­my protectors hanging in the creature’s closet!”

I couldn’t speak.  There had been so much happening that I’d clean forgotten Miss Cobb and her woolen tights.  And now to have them come back like this and hang themselves around my neck, so to speak—­it was too much.

“Per—­perhaps they’re hers,” I said weakly after a minute.

“Stuff and nonsense!” declared Miss Cobb.  “Don’t you think I know my own, with L. C. in white cotton on the band, and my own darning in the knee where I slipped on the ice?  And more than that, Minnie, where those tights are, my letters are!”

I glanced at the pantry, where her letters were hidden on the upper shelf.  The door was closed.

“But—­but what would she want with the letters?” I asked, with my teeth fairly hitting together.  Miss Cobb pushed her forefinger into my shoulder.

“To blackmail me,” she said, in a tragic voice, “or perhaps to publish.  I’ve often thought of that myself—­they’re so beautiful.  Letters from a life insurance agent to his lady-love—­interesting, you know, and alliterative.  As for that woman—!”