omesick for the children, but still
happy, nevertheless. She finished her dinner--a good dinner as became
a woman of means--and went into the little writing-room off the parlor
with the intention of jogging Mary's memory regarding the baby's diet.
There was but one person in the room, a young woman with fair hair
busily engaged in writing.

Persis sat down at the next desk. She was aware of a marked
acceleration of the pulse which to her temperament was far from
disquieting.

"Excuse me, but isn't this Miss Enid Randolph?"

"Yes." The young woman looked up from her letter. Though her hair was
light, her brows were dark and her air distinctly distant.

"I've always wanted to meet you." Persis spoke with unabashed
friendliness. "I've been interested in you for quite a spell. My name
is Dale, Persis Dale."

Miss Randolph lifted her fine eyebrows, but offered no further comment
on this interesting circumstance.

"Perhaps you'll remember," Persis continued briskly, "that we've had a
little correspondence. At least you wrote me about a letter of yours
to a Mr. Wash--"

"I remember the incident clearly," said Miss Randolph. For all her
chilling air, she glanced toward the door to assure herself that they
were not overheard. "It is true I wrote you," she continued with a
hauteur which would have reduced a less buoyant nature to instant
dumbness. "But I hardly see that this constitutes a ground for
considering ourselves acquaintances."

So far from being crushed, Persis smiled. And there was something so
frankly spontaneous in her look of amusement, that the young woman
colored.

"Bless you, I know it wasn't a letter of introduction," Persis assured
her with unimpaired good humor. "But I've always wanted to tell you
that when you wrote me that time, you did a lot of good without knowing
it. Love-letters seem to me like firearms. In the proper hands
they're real useful, but if the wrong people get hold of 'em it's bound
to make trouble. At least that was the way with the one you wrote Mr.
Wash--"

For the second time Miss Randolph looked toward the door, and when next
Persis saw her eyes they were appealing rather than disdainful.

"The letter by mistake was sent to a young man who lives in Clematis,"
Persis continued. "His name is Thompson, and W. Thompson, at that. He
thought it such a joke that he put it in his pocket for his wife to
find. Didn't know 'twas loaded, you see. And when she did f