conditions
call for modern methods, even in bookkeeping. I think I'll get a good
firm of accountants to go over our present system, and make such changes
as will keep you in closer touch with everything that is going on."

Mary hardly knew what to think.

"You're sure it has nothing to do with this?" she asked, indicating the
fragments in the waste-basket.

"Not the least connection! Besides," he argued, "you and I know very
well--don't we?--that with all his faults, Burdon would never do anything
like that--"

"Of course he wouldn't!"

"Very well. I think we ought to forget that part of it, and never refer
to it again--or it might be said that we were fearing for him."

This masculine logic took Mary's breath away, but though she thought it
over many a time that day, she couldn't find the flaw in it.

"Men are queer," she finally concluded. "But then I suppose they think
women are queer, too. To me," she thought, "it almost seems insulting to
Burdon to call accountants in now; but according to the judge it would be
insulting to Burdon not to call them in--"

She was still puzzling over it when Archey, that stormy petrel of bad
news, came in and very soon took her mind from anonymous letters.

"The finishers are getting ready to quit," he announced. "They had a vote
this noon. It was close, but the strikers won."

They both knew what a blow this would be. With each successive wave of
the strike movement, it grew harder to fill the men's places with women.

"If this keeps on, I don't know what we shall do," she thought. "By the
time we have filled these empty places, we shall have as many women
working here as we had during the war."

Outwardly, however, she gave no signs of misgivings, but calmly set in
motion the machinery which had filled the gaps before.

"If you're going to put that advertisement in again," said Archey, "I
think I'd add 'Nursery, Restaurant, Rest-room, Music'"

She included the words in her copy, and after a moment's reflection she
added "Laundry."

"But we have no laundry," objected Archey, half laughing. "Are you
forgetting a little detail like that?"

"No, I'm not," said Mary, her eyes dancing. "You must do the same with
the laundry as I did with the kindergarten. Go to Boston this
afternoon.... Take a laundryman with you if you like.... And bring the
things back in the morning by motor truck. We have steam and hot water
and plenty of buildings, and I'm sure it won't take long