“Before a single one is opened, you ought to take down the name and address of the sender, and then note the contents,” said Ellen, speaking with authority. “A card-catalogue would be a good system for keeping that record, I should think, with dates of the arrival of the cases. And why couldn’t you keep track of your refugees that way, too? A card for each family, with a record on it of the number in the family and of everything given. You could refer to it in a moment, and carry it out to the room where the refugees are received.” They gazed at her plain, sallow countenance in rapt admiration. “Eleanor,” said Mrs. Putnam, “bring back cards for a card-catalogue, hundreds of cards, thousands of cards.” She addressed Ellen with a respect which did honor to her native intelligence. “Miss Boardman, wouldn’t you better take off your hat? Couldn’t you work more at your ease? You could hang your things here.” With one sweep of her white, well-cared-for hand she snatched her own Parisian habiliments from the hanger and hook, and installed there the Marshallton wraps of Ellen Boardman. She set her down in front of the desk; she put in her hands the ridiculous little Russia leather-covered note-book of the “accounts”; she opened drawer after drawer crammed with letters; and with a happy sigh she went out to the room of the packing-cases, closing the door gently behind her, that she might not disturb the high-priestess of business-management who already bent over those abominably misused records, her eyes gleaming with the sacred fire of system. There is practically nothing more to record about the four months spent by Ellen Boardman as far as her work at the _vestiaire_ was concerned. Every day she arrived at number 27 rue Pharaon at eight o’clock and put in a good hour of quiet work before any of the more or less irregular volunteer ladies appeared. She worked there till noon, returned to the Y. W. C. A., lunched, was in the office again by one o’clock, had another hour of forceful concentration before any of the cosmopolitan great ladies finished their lengthy _déjeuners_, and she stayed there until six in the evening, when every one else had gone. She realized that her effort must be not only to create a rational system of records and accounts and correspondence which she herself could manage, but a fool-proof one which could be left in the hands of the elegant ladies who would remain in Paris after she had returned to Kansas.