Miss Silver said, “Dear me!” and continued to peruse the column. Two-thirds of the way down an unusual name caught her eye. Anna-one did not often come across the name in that form-

“Anna, where are you? Do please write. Thomasina.”

She did not remember that she had ever encountered a Thomasina. Pleasant to find these old-fashioned names coming back into use again. Ann, Jane, Penelope, Susan, Sarah-they had roots in English life, in English history. She approved them.

Beyond this approval there was nothing to hold her attention. There was nothing to tell her that a first faint contact had been made with a case which was to call forth all her courage and test to the uttermost the qualities which had brought her success.

She went on to one of the breezier appeals.

“Be a sport! Young man, 25, no money, no qualifications, needs job urgently. Will you give him one?”

Having finished the Agony Column, she folded the Times and laid it aside. The news had already reached her through a somewhat lighter medium. To the articles, correspondence, etc., she would give serious attention in a more leisured hour. At the moment her correspondence claimed her. She went over to a plain, solid writing-table and began a long affectionate letter to her niece Ethel Burkett, who was the wife of a bank manager in the Midlands.

Each member of the family was touched upon. Dear John, so kind, so hardworking-“I hope he has quite shaken off the cold you mentioned.” The three boys, Johnny, Derek and Roger, now all at school and doing well. And little Josephine, who would soon be four years old-“She is, I know, everybody’s darling, but you must be careful not to spoil her. The spoiled child is seldom happy or well, and is the cause of constant unhappiness in others.”

Having reached this point, she could pass by an easy transition to the disquieting affairs of Ethel’s younger sister, Gladys Robinson. Her small, neat features took on a shade of severity as she wrote.