eir day is
done.

Hertha, however difficult decision might be to her, had determined not
to be in this latter group. When her school work was over, she had
resolved to settle upon her future; but in the days that followed Tom's
visit, when with her lover away there was a chance to stop and think,
she had to confess to herself that the paths down which she looked were
none of them to her liking. And yet she must apparently choose one of
two alternatives or else after seven months of trial start in again with
lessened fortune, without a profession and alone.

As she sat at her books late one afternoon, endeavoring to indite a
business letter she looked up to find Miss Wood standing at her open
door.

"Excuse me," Miss Wood said, "I know you are at work but I wanted to
leave you some of my roses. One of our cases--a woman who got into
trouble--brought them to me from the country to-day. She did the
sensible thing (so few will) and went away with her child to work at
domestic service; and now she can come in for the day and leave me
something as lovely as this." And she held out a spray of rambler roses.

Hertha took the gift with a shy word of thanks, and after placing the
flowers in water invited Miss Wood to sit down.

"No, I'm not going to interrupt you," the older woman said.

"You aren't interrupting," Hertha answered. "Especially," she added, "as
I want very much to ask your advice."

To be asked to assume the role of adviser is the most subtle of
compliments; and Miss Wood, while murmuring that she feared she would be
of little use, took Hertha's rocking-chair by the window and proceeded
to look self-conscious, as though she might thus exude wisdom.

"Do you think," Hertha asked, sitting on the little straight white chair
opposite Miss Wood, "do you think that it needs any special talent to be
a stenographer?"

She put her question hesitatingly, playing the while with her hands, a
habit that had lately come to her with the city's insistent hurry and
nervous demand for quick thought. Her day at school had been a hard one
and only a walk with Bob had brought back courage to face life.

"I certainly think," Miss Wood answered, "that there are plenty of
stenographers in New York to-day without talent. I've had some of them
work for me."

"Yes," said Hertha with a little smile, "but you wouldn't want me to be
that sort!"

The assistant secretary of the Association for Improving the Condition
of the Destit