“What woman!” said Miss Summers’ voice from behind us.  We jumped and turned.  “I always save myself trouble, so if by any chance you are discussing me—­”

“As it happens,” Miss Cobb said, glaring at her, “I was discussing you.”

“Fine!” said Miss Julia.  “I love to talk about myself.”

“I doubt if it’s an edifying subject,” Miss Cobb snapped.

Miss Julia looked at her and smiled.

“Perhaps not,” she said, “but interesting.  Don’t put yourself out to be friendly to me, Miss Cobb, if you don’t feel like it.”

“Are you going to return my letters?” Miss Cobb demanded.

“Your letters?”

“My letters—­that you took out of my room!”

“Look here,” Miss Julia said, still in a good humor, “don’t you suppose I’ve got letters of my own, without bothering with another woman’s?”

“Perhaps,” Miss Cobb replied in triumph, “perhaps you will say that you don’t know anything of my—­of my black woolen protectors?”

“Never heard of them!” said Miss Summers.  “What are they?” And then she caught my eye, and I guess I looked stricken.  “Oh!” she said.

“Miss Cobb was robbed the other night,” I explained, as quietly as I could.  “Somebody went into her room and took a bundle of letters.”

“Letters!” Miss Summers straightened and looked at me.

“And my woolen tights,” said Miss Cobb indignantly, “with all this cold weather and military walks, and having to sit two hours a day by an open window!  And I’ll tell you this, Miss Summers, your dog got in my room that night, and while I have no suspicions, the chambermaid found my—­er—­missing garment this morning in your closet!”

“I don’t believe,” Miss Julia said, looking hard at me, “that Arabella would steal anything so—­er—­grotesque!  Do you mean to say,” she added slowly, “that nothing was taken from that room but the—­lingerie and a bundle of letters?”

“Exactly,” said Miss Cobb, “and I’d thank you for the letters.”

“The letters!” Miss Julia retorted.  “I’ve never been in your room.  I haven’t got the letters.  I’ve never seen them.”  Then a light dawned in her face.  “I—­oh, it’s the funniest ever!”

And with that she threw her head back and laughed until the tears rolled down her cheeks and she held her side.

“Screaming!” she gasped.  “It’s screaming!  But, oh, Minnie, to have seen your face!”

Miss Cobb swept to the door and turned in a fury.

“I do not think it is funny,” she stormed, “and I shall report to Mr. Carter at once what I have discovered.”

She banged out, and Miss Julia put her head on a card-table and writhed with joy.  “To have seen your face, Minnie!” she panted, wiping her eyes.  “To have thought you had Dick Carter’s letters, that I keep rolled in asbestos, and then to have opened them and found they were to Miss Cobb!”

“Be as happy as you like,” I snapped, “but you are barking up the wrong tree.  I don’t know anything about any letters and as far as that goes, do you think I’ve lived here fourteen years to get into the wrong room at night?  If I’d wanted to get into your room, I’d have found your room, not Miss Cobb’s.”