"I am very glad to meet you again. No, I never found that purse. The judge still twits me, when he sees me, about changing my mind. He thinks--" Then she stopped in embarrassment, and it was some time before I found out what the judge did think. "Have you been back to that place in Indiana?" she asked. And we had quite a chat. She talked to me like a young lady who was receiving a caller in her father's house. It took a long time to finish the few letters I had started to write. When she went, I got up and opened the door for her. I had to. "Good afternoon, Mr. Harrington," she said, holding out her hand. "I am so glad to have met you again." Old Peters, who was in the outer office, looked at us in considerable surprise. When Miss Gentles had gone he remarked in a gossiping way:-- "So you know the young woman?" "I met her once years ago," I admitted. "How did she land here? She doesn't seem to have had much experience as a stenographer." "No, she hasn't. Her father died several years ago, and didn't leave a cent. He was a very popular doctor, though--a Southerner. They lived kind of high, I guess, while there was anything. The Drounds knew them in their better days, and when the doctor died Mrs. Dround tried to help the girl in one way and another. Then they fixed up this job for her. I guess Mr. Dround don't work her very hard. Sorry you were troubled with her. We'll see that you get a rattler the next time, Mr. Harrington," he ended. (The men in the office were pretty nice to "Mr. Harrington" these days!) "Oh, she isn't so bad!" I said to Peters. For I rather looked forward to seeing the pretty, pleasant-mannered girl again. "I'd just as soon have Miss Gentles next week when Mr. Dround goes East, if no one else wants her." Old Peters had a twinkle in his eyes as he answered:-- "Just as you say, Mr. Harrington." So I came to see a good deal of Miss Gentles that summer while Mr. Dround was away on his vacation. I can't say that the young lady developed much business ability. She forgot most things with a wonderful ease, and she was never very accurate. But she tried hard, and it seemed to worry her so when I pointed out her mistakes that I took to having in another stenographer in the afternoon to finish what she hadn't done. Miss Gentles boarded with an old aunt of her mother's near where Slocum and I lived. I gathered that the aunt and her husband were not very kind to her. They thought she ought to marry, having good looks and no money. Miss Gentles let me call on her, and before the summer was over we were pretty well acquainted. For a long time the thought of May had kept me from looking at a woman; I always saw that little white face and those searching eyes, and heard that mocking laugh. But Miss Gentles was so different from May that she never made me think of the woman I had once loved.