office of the department, as has
been said, and had been ordered off on a court-martial. He was back in
two weeks, and more work went through that typewriter, and then came
days which he spent in study at the Lambert Library, and pages of
memoranda and notes which he read to her at her office, which were
faithfully stenographed and promptly, accurately typewritten, and there
were soon some evening walks home,--several of them,--and Forrest found
the way curiously short as compared with the original estimate. He was
deeply interested in his work at head-quarters, but the detail was only
to last a month or two longer, for then the regular incumbent would have
returned from the long leave of absence granted him on account of ill
health, and then Forrest himself purposed spending some months abroad,
all arrangements for his leave having been already consummated.

One afternoon at the library Mr. Wells came and seated himself by the
lieutenant's side. They had had many a long chat together, and were fast
friends.

"I'm out of luck," said Wells. "I've seen it coming for months, and
ought to have been prepared. My typewriter has given me warning."

"Going to be married, I suppose?"

"Yes, and within six weeks. She's a girl I simply can't replace."

"Why not?"

"Because in my work only a well-educated and highly intelligent girl
will answer. I have to dictate sometimes fifty letters a day filled with
strange names and technicalities and foreignisms, and there's no time to
consult dictionaries and the like,--no leisure, half the time, to read
over the letters submitted for my signature. I must trust to my
typewriter; and girls educated up to that standard come too high for our
salary. I gradually taught Miss Stockton what she knows, so she was
content with sixty dollars a month, but I can't get one who can do as
well for a hundred, which is more by forty than the directors will allow
me."

Forrest was silent a moment. "It is work that demands all a girl's time,
I suppose?" he ventured.

"Yes, every bit of it from nine to five, and often to six. She has her
evenings at home, however, unless some of our library assistants are
sick; then she would have to help at the shelves."

"If you are in no great hurry, will you hold the offer open one week? I
know a g--a lady, I should say, who is intelligence and accuracy
combined, and who might take it. She has done much work for me, and I
know her worth."

"Would she come for