and touched with the melancholy beauty of near-sightedness; that her face had a sensitive mobility beyond the mere charm of color, and like most people lacking this primitive and striking element of beauty, what was really fine about her escaped the first sight.  As, for instance, it was only by bending over to examine her accounts that he found that her indistinctive hair was as delicate as floss silk and as electrical.  It was only by finding her romping with the children of a guest one evening that he was startled by the appalling fact of her youth!  But about this time he left the hotel and returned to his house.

On the first yearly anniversary of the great strike at Excelsior there were some changes in the settlement, notably the promotion of Mr. Marsh to a more important position in the company, and the installation of Miss Cassie Marsh as manageress of the hotel.  As Miss Marsh read the official letter, signed by the president, conveying in complimentary but formal terms this testimony of their approval and confidence, her lip trembled slightly, and a tear trickling from her light lashes dimmed her eye-glasses, so that she was fain to go up to her room to recover herself alone.  When she did so she was startled to find a wire dummy standing near the door, and neatly folded upon the bed two elegant dresses.  A note in the president’s own hand lay beside them.  A swift blush stung her cheek as she read,—­

Dear Miss Marsh,—­Will you make me happy by keeping the secret that no other woman but yourself knows, and by accepting the clothes that no other woman but yourself can wear?

The next moment, with the dresses over her arm and the ridiculous dummy swinging by its wires from her other hand, she was flying down the staircase to Committee Room No. 4.  The door opened upon its sole occupant, the president.

“Oh, sir, how cruel of you!” she gasped.  “It was only a joke of mine. . . .  I always intended to tell you. . . .  It was very foolish, but it seemed so funny. . . .  You see, I thought it was . . . the dress you had bought for your future intended—­some young lady you were going to marry!”

“It is!” said the president quietly, and he closed the door behind her.

And it was.