Next day he managed to get up some of the small postal packages. The first one I opened was from one of the Assistant Editors in town. “I see in the papers that you’ve had a heavy fall of snow,” she wrote, “and as there was not a solitary line from you this morning, I’m wondering if you are isolated? At any rate, I’m sending you a home-made cake and a box of smoked sausages by this post (instead of MSS.) in case you may be cut off from supplies.” “If that isn’t bed-rock common sense,” said Ursula. “Most intelligent girls would have improved the occasion by sending you newspaper cuttings with statistics of the latest submarine sinkings, to keep your spirits up.” Another slight fall of snow was all the late afternoon brought us, not enough to spoil the newly cleared path, but sufficient to reveal the fact next morning that someone with large masculine boots had been promenading round the cottage, for there were the footprints, a clear track that even a detective could not have failed to see, leading from the gate to the outhouses, from the outhouses to the scullery door, from the scullery door to the best door (it’s absurd to call it the front door, because each side is as much the front as the other excepting the part that backs into the hill!), from the best door to the door with the porch, and so on, out of the gate again. As none of us knew anything about them, we concluded the handy man must have returned, bent on some new errand of mercy. But he disowned them; had not been near the place since the previous forenoon, and the snow had not fallen till five o’clock. It looked exceedingly queer, not to say uncanny, and we recalled the fact that the dog had barked violently after we were in bed. So far as I knew, there was no resident on those hills who would think of wandering round the house after dark; and no tramp or odd wayfarer would ever scale those heights unless he had some very urgent reason for so doing, and had a definite destination. It is too stiff a climb to take on a casual chance of picking up anything; moreover, unless a man knew his way, he would soon lose himself. Though the footprints really perplexed me, I did not say very much about them; but Eileen did. When Mr. Jones from a neighbouring farm arrived with milk, I heard the full description being given him at the kitchen door. He expressed due interest, and described a mysterious case he had just read about, in the weekly paper, of a servant who had disappeared from a house in London where she had been in service for years, and no trace of her had been found since. Eileen and he agreed as to the many points of similarity between the two cases.