Athalie

Her face, now, as she bent over her slender, white fingers, took on a

seriousness and gravity more mature; and there was in its pure, fresh

beauty something almost austere.

The care of her hands took her a long time; and they were not finished

then, for she had yet her bath to take and her hair to do before the

cream-of-something-or-other was applied to hands and feet so that they

should remain snowy and satin smooth.

Bathed, and once more in negligee, she let down the dull gold mass of

hair which fell heavily curling to her shoulders. Then she started to

comb it out as earnestly, seriously, and thoroughly as a beautiful,

silky Persian cat applies itself to its toilet.

But there was now an absent expression in her dark blue eyes as she

sat plaiting the shining gold into two thick and lustrous braids.

Perhaps she wondered, vaguely, why the spring-tide and freshness of a

girl's youth should exhale amid the sere and sordid circumstances

which made up, for her, the sum-total of existence; why it happened

that whatever was bright and gay and attractive in the world should be

so utterly outside the circle in which her life was passing.

Yet in her sober young face there was no hint of discontent, nothing

of meanness or envy to narrow the blue eyes, nothing of bitterness to

touch the sensitive lips, nothing, even, of sadness; only a

gravity--like the seriousness of a youthful goddess musing alone on

mysteries unexplained even on Olympus.

Seven years' experience in earning her own living had made her wiser

but had not really disenchanted her. And for seven years now, she had

held the first position she secured in New York--stenographer and

typist for Wahlbaum, Grossman & Co.

It had been perplexing and difficult at first; so many men connected

with the great department store had evinced a desire to take her to

luncheon and elsewhere. But when at length by chance she took personal

dictation from Wahlbaum himself in his private office--his own

stenographer having triumphantly secured a supporting husband, and a

general alarm having been sent out for another to replace her--Athalie

suddenly found herself in a permanent position. And, automatically,

all annoyances ceased.

Wahlbaum was a Jew, big, hearty, honest, and keen as a razor. Never

was he in a hurry, never flustered or impatient, never irritable. And

she had never seen him angry, or rude to anybody. He laughed a great

deal in a tremendously resonant voice, smoked innumerable big, fat,

light-coloured cigars, never neglected to joke with Athalie when she

came in the morning and when she left at night, and never as much as

by the flutter of an eyelid conveyed to her anything that any girl

might not hear without offence.