I took down the shred of tartan. It began narrow at the nail head which had caught it, and got gradually broader, till it ended, liked a filled-up A, in a fringe of the same colours. I spread the piece out along my palm, and then called to Maggie. “Look here, now, and tell me if any one about the house, or living near, wears a shawl of that pattern?” Maggie looked at the scrap of tartan, and declared most emphatically that no one in the household did wear such a shawl, and added with a smile that none of her acquaintances would be seen in such a thing—the colours being about the brightest and “loudest” that could be made for money. The same thought had already struck me, and my thoughts instinctively wandered in the direction of some of my own “bairns.” The tartan was of just such a pattern as one may see on scores of shoulders about the Cowgate on a Sunday afternoon. I seemed to see the whole shawl in that shred—a little square thing, folded across, and just big enough to cover the shoulders. By mentally picturing the shawl on a woman’s shoulders, and gauging her height by that treacherous nail, I could guess her to be a person rather under than above medium height, and immediately began to ask myself which of my “bairns” given to “snow-dropping” had been lately displaying such a grand shawl. Useless! their name is legion. They nearly all delight in these things, and a dozen at least might wear tartan of the identical colours of the shred in my hand. I began to think that I should make little of my discovery. However, I placed the scrap of tartan carefully between the leaves of my pocket-book, completed my list as far as I could at the house, and left. A bundle of the stolen things was in the Office before me. They had been offered at a pawnbroker’s shortly after the opening hour, and pledged for fourteen shillings. The boy who had taken in the things and paid over the money was a _blockhead_. He knew that the pledger was a woman, but could not describe her appearance. He did not think she was very old, and he did not think she was very young. Did she wear a tartan shawl? Yes, he thought so; but then he changed his mind, and thought that she hadn’t any shawl. No one could make anything of such a fool, and I strongly recommended the pawnbroker, for his own safety, to get rid of such a stupid assistant, to which the man replied that he would have been happy to do so, had the lad not been his own son. I grinned over my mistake, the pawnbroker helping me liberally, and then left. I then took a long stroll through the likeliest quarters, with a keen eye to every tartan shawl. Twice in the course of that walk did I start joyfully at sight of a shoulder shawl of the identical pattern, but in both cases the owners were decent, hard-working folks, and not a trace of a rent or patch to be found in either of the articles. With my eyes thus grown familiar in the search, I was wearily trudging homewards late in the afternoon with the shawl