flags
began to fly.

The door opened, but Helen's smiling glance was disappointed. The two
auditors entered.

One was grey, the other was young; but each had the same pale, incurious
air of detachment. They reminded Mary of two astronomy professors of her
college days, two men who had just such an air of detachment, who always
seemed to be out of their element in the daylight, always waiting for the
night to come to resume the study of their beloved stars.

"I have sent for our treasurer, Mr. Woodward," said Mary. "Won't you be
seated for a few minutes?"

They sat down in the same impersonal way and glanced around the room with
eyes that seemed to see nothing. By the side of the mantel was a framed
piece of history, an itemized bill of the first generation of the firm,
dated June 28, 1706, and quaint with its old spelling, its triple column
of pounds, shillings and pence.

"May I look at that?" asked one of the accountants, rising. The other
followed him. Their heads bent over the document.... It occurred to Mary
that they were verifying the addition.

Again the door opened and this time it was Burdon, his dashing
personality immediately dominating the room.

Mary introduced the accountants to him.

"With our new methods," she said, "we probably need a new system of
bookkeeping. I also want to compare our old costs with present costs--"

Burdon stared at her, but Mary--half-ashamed of what she was doing--kept
her glance upon the two accountants.

"Mr. Burdon will give you all the old records, all the old books you
want," she said, "and will help you in every possible way--"

And still Burdon stared at her--his whole life concentrated for a moment
in his glance. And still Mary looked at the two accountants who completed
the triangle by looking at Burdon, as they naturally would, waiting for
him to turn and speak to them. As Mary watched them, she became conscious
of a change in their manner, a tenseness of interest, such as the two
astronomers aforesaid might display at the sight of some disturbance in
the heavens.

"What do they see?" she thought, and looked at Burdon. But Burdon at the
same moment had turned to the accountants, his manner as large, his air
as dashing as ever.

"Anything you want, gentlemen," he said, "you have only to ask for it."

When Mary reached home that evening, you can imagine how Aunt Patty and
Aunt Cordelia listened to her recital, their white heads nodding at the
periods, t