“Find and cut out the ‘Personal’ column of every number, Mary,” said Lady Molly to me. “I’ll look through them on my return. I am going for a walk, and will be home by lunch time.”
I knew, of course, that she was intent on her business and on that only, and as soon as she had gone out I set myself to the wearisome task which she had allotted me. My dear lady was evidently working out a problem in her mind, the solution of which she expected to find in a back number of the West of England Times.
By the time she returned I had the “Personal” column of some three hundred numbers of the paper neatly filed and docketed for her perusal. She thanked me for my promptitude with one of her charming looks, but said little, if anything, all through luncheon. After that meal she set to work. I could see her studying each scrap of paper minutely, comparing one with the other, arranging them in sets in front of her, and making marginal notes on them all the while.
With but a brief interval for tea, she sat at her table for close on four hours, at the end of which time she swept all the scraps of paper on one side, with the exception of a few which she kept in her hand. Then she looked up at me, and I sighed with relief.
My dear lady was positively beaming.
“You have found what you wanted?” I asked eagerly.
“What I expected,” she replied.
“May I know?”
She spread out the bits of paper before me. There were six altogether, and each of these columns had one paragraph specially marked with a cross.
“Only look at the paragraphs which I have marked,” she said.