_A poor stenographer--The positive young lady under altered circumstances--Miss Gentles's story--A hard road for tender feet--Social and sentimental--A misunderstanding--Which is made right in the only way--My boss invites us to dinner--Another kind of woman--A woman's shrewdness--The social gift--At the opera--Business and pleasure--Sarah on Mrs. Dround_ It was a hot day in August three years after the trial; I was sitting in Carmichael's office trying to get a breath of fresh air from his west windows. I called old Peters and asked him to send me up a stenographer. "Haven't a good one in the place, Mr. Harrington," he said. "All the smart ones are off on their vacation. There's Miss Gentles, though--the old man generally keeps her for himself, but he's gone home by this time." "Send up anything so long as it can write!" "Well, she _ain't_ much good," Peters replied. I had my head down behind my desk when the stenographer came in, and I began to dictate without looking up. These stenographer ladies were all of a piece to me,--pert, knowing misses,--all but Miss Harben: she was fifty and sour, and took my letters like biting off thread. This one evidently wasn't in her class, for pretty soon she sang out:-- "Please wait! I can't go so fast." So I waited, and looked up to see what I had to do with. This young woman was a good-looking, ladylike person, with a mass of lovely brown hair and long brown eyelashes. She was different from the other girls in the office, and yet it seemed to me I had seen her before. She was dressed in black, a sort of half mourning, I judged. Pretty soon she got stuck again and asked me to repeat. This time she looked at me imploringly. "I am not very good," she said with a smile. "No, you are not," I replied. She laughed at my blunt answer--laughed pleasantly, like a lady who knows how to turn off a harsh truth, not flirtatiously, like most of her profession. "Been long at it?" I asked the next time she broke down. "Not so very. I graduated from the school about six months ago, and I have always worked for Mr. Dround since then. He doesn't talk as fast as you do, not nearly." She smiled again at me, frankly and naturally. Suddenly I remembered where I had seen that face before, and when she looked up again I said:-- "Did you ever find that purse, Miss Gentles?" She looked puzzled at first; then a light spread over her face, and she stammered:-- "Why, of course, you are _the_ Mr. Harrington who--But you have changed!" "Rather, I hope! And the light wasn't good in the police station that morning." Miss Gentles leaned back in her chair and laughed, a blush spreading prettily over her face. "It's all so funny!" she exclaimed. "Funnier now than it was then," I admitted. [Illustration: "_Why, of course, you are the Mr. Harrington who--But you have changed!_"]