"Mr. Berry says that is just what Mrs. Blythe is, a torch to set others aflame. He has heard her talk to clubs and societies about her work, and he says that she is so convincing that before the summer is over she'll have me blazing like a house afire, the biggest beacon in the bunch. But I don't think much of _Orphant Annie_ as a prophet. It is just one of his ways of always saying the gobelins'll git you. I know they'll never get me to the extent of making me 'speak in meetin'.' Now you know just what it is I have gone into, and can picture the daily life quite accurately of Yours as ever, Mary Ware, late of Lone-Rock, now Reformer of Riverville." CHAPTER III THE SUPREME CALL That was the last letter which Phil received from Mary for many weeks, although he wrote regularly to the address she gave of the boarding-house on the sycamore-shaded street. Several times she sent a postal with a scribbled line of acknowledgment, but the days were too full for personal affairs, and at night she was too tired to attend to her own correspondence, after pounding on the typewriter so many hours. She had attacked her new duties with all the zeal and force that had characterized her "snake-killings" on the desert. Habit alone made her do that, and pride added another motive. She was determined to justify Madam Chartley's opinion of her. Not being able to write shorthand she worked overtime to gain extra speed on the typewriter, so that she might take dictation directly on the machine. Now, all the neatness and system which had made her housekeeping so perfect in its way, made her a painstaking and methodical little business woman. Her neatly typed pages were a joy to Mrs. Blythe. Her system of filing and indexing brought order out of confusion in the topsy-turvy desk, and she soon had the various reports which they referred to daily, labelled and arranged in the different pigeon-holes as conveniently as the spice boxes and cereal jars had been in the kitchen cabinet at home. It was not long before Mrs. Blythe began handing letters over to her as Jack had done, saying briefly, tell them this or thus, and leaving her to frame the answer in the best style she could. This spurred her on to still greater effort, and she made up her mind to become so familiar with every branch of the subject that she could give an intelligent answer to any question that might be asked. Once she wrote home to Jack: