“Um,” said Norman reflectively.  “There’s Miss Bostwick—­perhaps she’ll do.”

“Miss Bostwick got married last week.”

Norman smiled.  He remembered the girl because she was the oldest and homeliest in the office.  “There’s somebody for everybody—­eh, Tetlow?”

“He was a lighthouse keeper,” said Tetlow.  “There’s a story that he advertised for a wife.  But that may be a joke.”

“Why not that Miss—­Miss Halloway?” mused Norman.

“Miss Hallowell,” corrected Tetlow.

“Hallowell—­yes.  Is she—­very incompetent?

“Not exactly that.  But business is slackening—­and she’s been only temporary—­and——­”

Norman cut him off with, “Send her in.”

“You don’t wish her dismissed?  I haven’t told her yet.”

“Oh, I’m not interfering in your department.  Do as you like. . . .  No—­in this case—­let her stay on for the present.”

“I can use her,” said Tetlow.  “And she gets only ten a week.”

Norman frowned.  He did not like to hear that an establishment in which he had control paid less than decent living wages—­even if the market price did excuse—­yes, compel it.  “Send her in,” he repeated.  Then, as Tetlow was about to leave, “She is trustworthy?”

“All our force is.  I see to that, Mr. Norman.”

“Has she a young man—­steady company, I think they call it?”

“She has no friends at all.  She’s extremely shy—­at least, reserved. 
Lives with her father, an old crank of an analytical chemist over in
Jersey City.  She hasn’t even a lady friend.”

“Well, send her in.”

A moment later Norman, looking up from his work, saw the dim slim nonentity before him.  Again he leaned back and, as he talked with her, studied her face to make sure that his first judgment was correct.  “Do you stay late every night?” asked he smilingly.

She colored a little, but enough to bring out the exquisite fineness of her white skin.  “Oh, I don’t mind,” said she, and there was no embarrassment in her manner.  “I’ve got to learn—­and doing things over helps.”

“Nothing equal to it,” declared Norman.  “You’ve been to school?”

“Only six weeks,” confessed she.  “I couldn’t afford to stay longer.”

“I mean the other sort of school—­not the typewriting.”

“Oh!  Yes,” said she.  And once more he saw that extraordinary transformation.  She became all in an instant delicately, deliciously lovely, with the moving, in a way pathetic loveliness of sweet children and sweet flowers.  Her look was mystery; but not a mystery of guile.  She evidently did not wish to have her past brought to view; but it was equally apparent that behind it lay hid nothing shameful, only the sad, perhaps the painful.  Of all the periods of life youth is the best fitted to bear deep sorrows, for then the spirit has its full measure of elasticity.  Yet a shadow upon youth