At last she said, "I can tell you now exactly what you must do with this letter and the post office order inside. They were sent by a lady to the tailoring department of Brading's, the large stores in the London Road. You must take it there and tell them where you found it."
But the girl shook her head. "'Tain't likely they'll believe me; they'll just say I stole it."
"No, no; you do not look like a girl who would steal," said Molly. And this was true, although if she had committed the theft, she could scarcely look more frightened than she did at Molly's proposal.
"I wouldn't mind you taking 'em, miss. You'd know what to say to 'em, but I ain't used to talking to gents."
Molly was puzzled, but she kept the papers in her hand, and at last she thought of a way out of the difficulty.
THERE COULD BE NO DOUBT
THAT THIS WAS THE MISSING LETTER.
"I will go with you if you like," she said. "Could you go in the dinner hour to-morrow, if I met you at the corner of the London Road?"
"Yes, you could, Hester," said Alice, who rather envied her cousin the honour of walking into a big shop like Brading's with Miss Molly. "You could do it fine, Hester," urged Alice. "The mill is close to the London Road, and you could be at Brading's corner by five minutes after twelve."
"You meet me there at five minutes past twelve and I will take care nobody hurts you. And when you leave the mill in the afternoon, you shall come here to tea with Alice, and I will give you some nice hot cakes that Alice shall bake ready for you."