returned again and again during her stay in the
house, though with diminished force.

After breakfast, "Cobbler" Horn invited his secretary to attack the
accumulated mass of letters which waited for despatch.

"You see, Miss Owen," he said in half-apology for asking her to begin work
so soon, "the pile gets larger every day; and, if we don't do something to
reduce it at once, it will get altogether beyond bounds."

Miss Owen turned her sparkling dark eyes upon her employer.

"Oh, Mr. Horn," she exclaimed, as she took her seat at the table, "the
sooner we get to work the better! I did not come here to play, you know."

"Cobbler" Horn poured an armful of unanswered letters down upon the table,
in front of his ardent young secretary.

"There's a snow-drift for you, Miss Owen!" he said.

"Thank you, sir," was the cheery response, "we must do our best to clear
it away."

Miss Owen was already beginning to feel quite at home with "Cobbler" Horn;
and she even ventured at this point, to rally him on the dismay with which
he regarded his piles of letters.

"Don't you think, sir," she asked, with a radiant smile, "that a little
sunshine might help us?"

"Cobbler" Horn started, and glanced towards the window. The morning was
dull.

"Yes," he said; "but we can't command----" Then he perceived her meaning,
and broke off with a smile. "To be sure; you are right, Miss Owen. It is
wrong of me to be wearing such a gloomy face. But you see this kind of
thing is all so new and strange to me; and you need not wonder that I am
dismayed."

"No," replied the secretary, with just the faintest little touch of
patronage in her tone; "it's not surprising in your case. But I am not
dismayed. Answering letters has always been my delight."

"That's well," said "Cobbler" Horn, gravely; "And I think you will have
to supply a large share of the 'sunshine' too, Miss Owen."

"I'll try," she replied, simply, with a beaming smile; and she squared her
shapely arms, and bent her dusky head, and set to work with a will, while
"Cobbler" Horn, regarding her from the opposite side of the table, was
divided between two mysteries, which were, how she could write so fast and
well, and what it was which made him feel as if he had known her all his
life?

Most of the letters contained applications for money. Some few were from
the representatives of well-known philanthropic societies; many others
were appeals on behalf of local charities or associa