She spoke to me as I approached.
“Winthrop,” she said, “what was in the package that Madame Barras carried away with her tonight?”
The query very greatly surprised me. I thought Madame Barras had carried this package away with her several evenings before when I had put her English bank-notes in my box at the local bank. My sister added the explanation which I should have been embarrassed to seek, at the moment.
“She asked me to put it somewhere, on Tuesday afternoon.... It was forgotten, I suppose.... I laid it in a drawer of the library table.... What did it contain?”
I managed an evasive reply, for the discovery opened possibilities that disturbed me.
“Some certificates, I believe,” I said.
My sister made a little pretended gesture of dismay.
“I should have been more careful; such things are of value.”
Of value indeed! The certificates in Madame Barras' package, that had lain about on the library table, were gold certificates of the United States Treasury—ninety odd of them, each of a value of one thousand dollars! My sister went:
“How oddly life has tossed her about.... She must have been a mere infant at Miss Page's. The attachment of incoming tots to the older girls was a custom.... I do not recall her.... There was always a string of mites with shiny pigtails and big-eyed wistful faces. The older girls never thought very much about them. One has a swarm-memory, but individuals escape one. The older girl, in these schools, fancied herself immensely. The little satellite that attached itself, with its adoration, had no identity. It had a nickname, I think, or a number.... I have forgotten. We minimized these midges out of everything that could distinguish them.... Fancy one of these turning up in Madame Barras and coming to me on the memory of it.”