She shared the outer office with an elderly and impoverished clerk called Arnold Jessop. He always wore an overcoat, and keeping his lunch in the pockets of it, he would begin, from an early hour, to extract crumbs of bread and cheese, and quickly pop them into his mouth when he thought she was not looking. He lived with a sister who kept a small Home for Cats, and his first sign of consideration for Theresa was when he brought a kitten out of the pocket where it had been sitting on his lunch. "It's an orphan," he said, and blew his nose. "Poor thing," said Theresa, stroking it with a forefinger. "I hadn't realized a kitten could be." "Could be?" "An orphan." "Of course they can. I should think so! Pussy, pussy, pussy!" she heard the grating of his teeth as he rubbed the creature's neck, "ain't you an orphan, then? Ain't you? Course you are--just like anybody else. You can have him if you like," he added, and turned away as though he disdained his gift. "That's very kind of you," she said. She hated cats, but for Mr. Jessop she felt affection. "That's very kind," she repeated. "But are you sure you won't miss it?" she asked hopefully. He gave a single shake of the head, and bunched up his lips. "There are always more of them coming on," he said with melancholy. She looked at the little animal as it wandered adventurously on the office table. "Then I'll take it home to-night; but, till then, would you mind keeping it in your pocket? I'm afraid it will get trodden on. And, oh, look, it has put its wretched little paw into the inkpot! If you dare to smudge my beautiful clean papers----" She held it gingerly by the body while Mr. Jessop dabbed its foot with blotting-paper. "You'll be kind to him?" he asked wistfully. "Of course I shall, and I'll call him Arnold, after you. Because," she added hastily, in dread of misunderstanding, "because it was so good of you to give him to me." She smiled vividly, with her unfailing wish to please. * * * * * For three years, while Grace danced, and laughed, and made people happy by the look of her, and fell in love and out of it again; while Edward Webb did his dull clerkly work until evening brought him to his poets, and Uncle George bought and sold his grains, and yearned towards his harmonium and the seamen, Theresa went daily to Mr. Partiloe's office. She had meant to spend her leisure in writing, and though she had not yet penned a word, she still saw her future haloed with fame; and when she was saddened by the thought of her blank pages, and the fact that she was not even mastering her technique, she found comfort in the belief that the experiences of her idleness were necessary to her stock-in-trade. With the upper froth of her mind, she was learning to be social. "Grace," she said one night, as they lay in bed, "I wish you'd furbish me up a little bit, and--and drag me about with you to places, if I shouldn't be a nuisance."