The Oregon daily journal., March 03, 1918, Page 48, Image 48

lleved. For he recognized with be,wll
dered amazement that he did believe It.
lie wu no longer hot with vindictive pas-
,elon. lie no longer thirsted, dry tongued,
. for vengeance for Hackley's death. He
was chill with apprehension for the fate
'bf these two young people, who crouched
watching in agony the changes in his
face, as though turning: to him for help.
For help! And the girl's words had star-;
uea in mm an amazea questioning.
What, Indeed, would Hackley have said
to this Hackley, who had been a Just
man; as far an he had understanding.
And he would have understood thlsw
What would he have said in the presence
of this grim prospective tragedy, which
was tightening like bands about Dr. Ren
few's heart? Of a man guiltless of in
tended wrong, yet with only this flimsy
story to prove his innocence
'Presently he turned and went slowly
down the stairs into the room with Hack
ley's body, it lay as he had left it, sep
arated by the full width of the room from
the tall mirror. Its head and shoulders al
most in the clean-swept grate. There was
no help here. And he had not expected
any, nor any change. For how could it
change now? Dr. Renfew knew, as he
gazed down into its stony face, that,
called in time, he would have hazarded
all things, even his own life itself, to pre
serve llackley's or any other Ufa. But,
dead, be saw tn the body of his friend
only an .empty shell a shell, one now,
with the earth and Its waters.
Life had great sanctity for Dr. Ren
few; death had none. More truly than
most who professed louder their belief in
Immortality, he lived in accordance with
that belief. As he stared now again at
the significant details of the room It was
RANT RIDGEWAY,
one of the supreme
powers In the
financial world of
two c o n 1 1 nents,
had never been
T 4 r I K I Known to miss a
been summoned.
( Ills whole life,Tfrom its obscure, bu
colic beginning, had exemplified thor
oughness, attention to detail, and effi
ciency. Whatever he undertook he car
ried through despite the fact that his
office force comprised a small, specialized
army with his own keen eye focused, his
own dynamic brain trained, upon even
the least significant rrfove.
He brought that; dominating char
acteristic to bear upon every ulterior re
sponsibility he assumed, and whenever
he consented to serve on the board of di
rectors of a bank or trust company, that
Institution could rely unerringly upon his
presence at every meeting which was
called.
If anything of moment in his own
multitudinous affairs conflicted, it was
inevitably deferred; if a difficulty arose
in his private domestic life, it as inevlta-
bly was met and adjusted without his
presence, should its arrival coincide with
the call of a board's president.
Men said that Ridgeway would have
stayed the hand of death, or, falling that,
have risen from the grave itself, to at
tend a meeting. They cited his absolute
reliability and Inexorable rule of prompt
itude and surety of purpose as compo-
T
nent steps of his ascent to the throne of
money monarch.
They were undoubtedly correct In
these asseverations, in so far as they ap
plied to his conduct of his own affairs;
but with regard to the directors' meet
ings, no one had ever dreamed of the
truth.
He did not place them at the head and
front of the multifarious matters of state
and finance which claimed him, consider
them of higher importance than profit or
Idss, f friendship or enmity, happiness or
misery, life or death, because of any
dominating force in his character of
thoroughness, or efficiency or. undeviat
Ing adherence to executive duty. His
never-falling presence was due to an ab
surdly insignificant cause, ludicrous were
ftaot tragic in a man" of his caliber.
He attended for one thing, and one '
thing only; to procure that little gle&m
fng metal disk, the ten-dollar gold piece ,
which was the wage of every director
who came when he was summoned, and
gave his time and more or less bored at- .
tentt6n to the matter in hand!
Had the world guessed that he who
controlled steajnshlp lines and railroads,
whose, vast hpldlnga extended to every
quarter of the globe, who numbered em
perors and kings among his creditors, at
tached any importance to the solitary lit
tle gold piece it would have scoffed, at
first incredulously, then contemptuously,
and gone its way. .
'""But Grant Ridgeway kept his obses
slon sedulously from the world. He him
self could not have told when or why this
fiabit had first gripped him and grown,
lichenlike, into a miserly passion which -overmastered
even his indomitable' will. H
Perhaps the corroding poverty of his
early youth, the bitter, subconsciously
remembered struggle and unswerving
elf-denial to attain the first ten dollar-
Tlhie
I ... I
no longer of Hackley he was thinking,
but of the mute witness that these bore
against the boy upstairs., '
Suddenly he brushed his hand across
, ' his eyes with decision. Ho lowered the
shades until the room, was in darkness.
He moved with skilled sureness, deter
mination, a sort of exaltation. Yet when
the canary dropped from its perch, with .
a metallic rattle of its claws against the
tin floor of its cage, he winced as a mur
derer would have winced. He closed the
door into the hall and locked it on the in
side. He switched on the electric lights.
In this brilliant buist of artificial light the
room started out in all its confusion and
.horror; every speck was visible, and the
face of the dead -man huddled at the grae
was white and gleaming, as Dr. Renfew
approached the desk and picked up the
short and heavy-bladed paper trutter
which he himself had brought to Hack
ley from the Mediterranean
The police officer upon the post ar
rived first. He took down the names of
those inhabiting, the house and their re
lationship to the dead man. He had re
ceived unmodified, when, he made his
hourly telephone report to the station-
house from the patrol box, the statement
Dr. Renfew, had made ' to the police
merely, "a coroner's case." The patrol
man did not ask to enter the locked
study, after learning that the key was in
Dr. Renfew's pocket. He had been in-
, s true ted to await the arrival of the po
lice captain commanding the district. He
waited with Dr. Renfew in, the room
across the hall, until the doctor rose to
admit the coroner's deputy.
The deputy, a man of 35, shook hands
with Dr. Renfew in a businesslike man
ner. In the interval while they waited
he had ever possessed, had something to
do with his obsession. Perhaps it was
the memory of his supreme hour of exul
tation at achieving a long-strived-for
honor, when years before he had attend
ed the first directors' meeting to which he
had been bidden, and the little golden
coin, winking up at him from' tlfe shining
mahogany table, had held for him a
magic charm never to be broken.
Whatever its cause, he hoarded them
secretly, avariciously, with a miser's
gloating greed, and each one added to the
ever-increasing pile brought to him an
'exhilaration, a sense ofTtower,. which no
triumph, however colossal, on bourse or .
exchange could bestow.
When the Gotham Bank hurriedly
called a meeting of its directors on a Sat
urday morning, of all times in the world,
it must undoubtedly have had some
pressing arid urgent reason for so doing.
With that we have no more concern than
had Grant Ridgeway, In his inmost
thoughts.
His mind was centered on the fresh
ten-dollar gold piece to be added to his
store; yet there were other considerations
which he might well have taken into ac
count He had grown so accustomed, in his
long, hotly contested game with destiny,
to treat every one who came within the
grasp of his power as mere pawns, to be
moved at will, that when he found them
. going counter to the guiding touch of his
fingers it caused him vague irritation and
surprise. Nothing more than a momen
tary sense of annoyance, however it was
so easy to sweep them from the board.
But there were two women who could
not so easily be eliminated from his
scheme of things; his tiresomely ailing
wife and his dead brother's daughter,
Constance.
If he had ever loved1 the soft-eyed,
palely pretty village girl whom he had
married when he himself was little more
than a plowboy, the succeeding years of
" struggle and achievement had wrested
from him all tender memories and capa
city for sentiment.
His wife should be the head of his
vast establishments in town and country,
the mother of sturdy, keen-witted chil
dren, the brilliant, tactful, superlatively
clever hostess of his renowned giests,
the showcase to display before society
and the world at large his opulence and
power in the magnificence of her appear
ance and wealth of her jewels. Instead,
she was a seipMnvalld; gentle and un
complaining, it is true, but with no men
tal growth, no grasp of his ambitions,
clinging to him with the desperate
strength of the weak and helpless, asking
not as if it were her right, of course,
but as a supreme favor for a continual,
monstrous sacrifice from him.
His time if he would only give her
just a few minutes each day! Minutes
which were priceless, time which was of
, inestimable value to his career, to the
world and she wished them sacrificed to
her! She, who gave nothing: in return,
who lay listlessly upon her couch all day
and lived In the memories he had put
resolutely behind him! .
It was possible, of course, that she
suffered; but what ws mere physical
suffering? Grant Ridgeway had . never
known a day's Illness in his life; he
couldn't have sparedthe time. , "
i : If his wife had been a disappointment
to him, his niece had proved a veritable
thorn in bis side! '
for the police captain Dr. Renfew saw
him exa mtfeihg with attention as much
of the premises as he could see from his
seat. Presently his eyes rested with re
spectful Interest on Dr. Renfew himself.
"You look 111, doctor." he said. "You
should take a rest. , i
Dr. Renfew changed his seat with un
easiness greater than mere annoyance.
He sat by the window, nervously Jerking
the curtain cord, while he explained to
the .deputy his long friendship with the
dead man. He was relieved when he
heard finally the snow-stifled rumble of
the police captain's buggy.
The police captain conversed aside .
with the patrolman, and read over the
notes in the officer's notebook.
"You were here?" He' looked at Dr.
Renfew.
"Called as the family physician." Dr.
Renfew explained steadily. "Mr. Hack
ley was dead when I arrived."
Ha handed the key of the study to the
captain, and followed with the deputy as ,
the captain led the way across the hall.
The captain pushed open the door of the
darkened room, crossed carefully to the
west window, and raised the shade. Dr.
Renfew scanned his face with painful ln
tentness as he turned stolidly to take his
first impression-of the room.
Then thesdoctor's eyes! shifted, appre
hensively, to the deputy. The deputy
stood silent and observant on the sill:
and the fingers relaxed which had been
cutting into Dr. Renfew's own flesh.
He drew back, that they might see he
intended to leave them free to investigate
and draw conclusions as they wished
without interference from him, without
comment.
The deputy greeted this movement
- i ' '
When, orphaned and possessed of a
huge fortune 'in her own right, she had
come to him as his ward, he had assured
himself that within his hands was an
other instrument to further his own ends.
vBut here again a perverse fate had in
tervened, and the instrument proved to
,be anything but a pliant one. His inter-.
ests on the other side needed strengthen
ing, in a sudden crisis which had arisen ;
an alliance between a member of a cer
tain great, influential English house and
one of his own blood would have been a
triumphant stroke of diplomacy.
Carlton 'Eschelby was Just the man.y
He had no title, hence the press and the
public could not rave about another
American heiress sold to the effete Brit
ish nobility.
On the other hand, he and his ancient
family possessed unbounded Influence, by
right of birth and breeding. In Just the
right quarter to further materially Ridge
way's plans; and Kschelby needed Con
nie's money to keep up Eschelby Towers .
and the house on Park lane, to say noth
ing of the shooting-box In Scotland and
the vast estate on the bleak west coast
of Ireland.
Eschelby his hair a little thin, his
shoulders slightly narrow, the vicious
lines of dissipation showing a trifle too
prominently on his middle-aged, hawk
like face came condescendingly to the
sacrifice.
Connie saw him, and her clear blue
eyes flashed dangerously, but she merely
tilted her delightfully democratic little
nose still higher than nature had intend
ed and turned upon him-a superb, dim
pled young shoulder.
Later she did what no one else had .
dared to do In the history of man; she
appeared before her uncle In his inner
eanctum of offices, a silken whirlwind of
wrath, and told him what she thought of
him, and his plans, and Eschelby.
Especially the latter.
Of course she had complicated the sit-
nation by proceeding to fall in love with
Burke Neville, who had no Influence to
further Ridgeway' ambitions, or any
body else's, and no prospects for himself
beyond those which youth and effrontery
and a fledgling admission to. the bar be
stowed upon him.
Ridgeway had promptly forbidden thes
good looking young scamp the house, and
had put his incorrigible niece practically
under espionage.
Carlton Eschelby had stayed on he
llkedthe little Yankee flapper's spirit., by
gad but Connie treated him with an im
pregnable indifference, and her uncle
with a pitying scorn, which perturbed the
- latter more than he would admit to hlm-
' self. She must prove amenable In time,
of course;, no one had ever successfully
defied him yet Meanwhile he had a
, sneaking suspicion that she was seeing
Burke Neville, "or communicating with
him, In spite of his explicit orders.fyand
the sensation of being even temporarily
thwarted was a new and unpleasant one.
So matters stood on the Saturday
morning of that hurriedly called direct
. ors' meeting at the Gotham Bank. .
There was no question of Ridgeway's
: attendance "of course, even though the
: market had exhibited alarming tenden
cies at closing time the day before
, there was that precious ten-dollar gold
piece to be obtained. '
- To the other crisis at home, the state
of his wife's health, Ridgeway gave not &
thought "r - ' - " ,
with a gratified look. He had not tried to
y hide from Dr. Renfew his satisfaction at
having received this case. He was plain
ly eager to show his efficiency before the
great authority on medical Jurisprudence '
in this matter which had more than or
dinary interest for the doctor.
He had spoken, while they waited in
the other room, of Dr." Renfew's latest
book, and, with particular admiration,-of
those parts of it which dealt with the
first appearance of a scene of violent
death. Now he drew the police captain's
attention by an abrupt gesture away .
' from the body, which lay directly In front
of the tall mirror on the side o& the room
f aVthest from the grate, to the room itself.
The first Impression given by the room
was its perfect orderliness. The poll6e
captain turned from where he stood be
side the body and 'joined the deputy at
the desk. ,
The clean white papers upon the desk
were arranged exactly in neat piles on
the flat top. The deputy noted that they
were classified carefully one pile of re
ceipts, another of unpaid bills.
The bunch of keys had been laid with
care on top of the larger pile. The police
captain nodded understanding, as the
deputy pointed . to the keys, and took
them up and tried them on' the "desk.
When he found one that fitted he opened
the drawers, whose contents showed the
same orderliness as the desk top.
The bottom drawer, however, was
empty. He r closed arid locked them,
and the deputy made written note of the
position of the keys, the papers, and the
kitchen chair.
This chair stood pushed close up to they
desk, as a man pushes up "his chair when
his day's work is finished.
Her -ailment had within the last few
days taken a decided turn for the worse,
and she was to be operated upon that '
morning; but it was of no serious conse
quence just another of those intermina
ble, ever-recurring operations of hers,
which left her more drawn and shadowy
looking than ever and disarranged the
perfectly-oiled machinery of the house
hold, and made even his own private
rooms, far removed as they were from
hers, reek of disgusting, sanitary, hos
pital odors. '
Grant Ridgeway attended his direct
ors' meeting, aided with his usual judi
cial decisiveness in the adjustment of the
sudden-arisen difficulty, and stepped into
the limousine for a look -In at his office
before going home, with the magic, glit
tering ten-dollar gold piece tucked in the
palm of his hand beneath his glove, where
he could feel the tangible evidence of the
cold disk pressing Into his flesh.
Leaning well back in a close-curtained ,
corner of the car, he exulted over . his
newly-born possession.
Meanwhile several things had hap
pened. At the house far up the avenue facing
the park a house as uncompromisingly
grim and straight and austere as Ridge
way himself Connie, listlessly drawing
on her gloves, knocked t her aunt's
door.
"Please ask Aunt Margaret if she
wants anything from the shops," she told
the impassive-faced maid. "I'm going
downtown. Tell her that my uncle said
I might use the green car."
"Mrs. Ridgeway does not wish any-'
thing." The maid returned to her after
a moment "She hopes that you will re
member be at home promptly at 1 to
take luncheon with Mr. Ridgeway."
Connie stepped into the green car, her
eyes snapping with mischief. .
She knew nothing of what was so soon
to take place in the house she had Just
left. It was by her aunt's own timorous
ly voiced request that she was allowed to
remain in Ignorance. -
"Don't tell her about the operation.
Grant, please, until until it is all over,"
Margaret Ridgeway had pleaded. "She
Is so young, it will worry her and make
her unhappy. The young always feel so
deeply."
; "Just as you like, of, course," he had
replied Indifferently. "There's nothing to
worry about; you'll come through all
.right Connie shouldn't feel so much,
anyway. She ought to think a little, use
her brains instead of her emotions for a
change," .
Watching the little clock in the lim
' ousine assiduously, Connie stopped at a
j shop or two that the keen-eyed chauffeur
in her uncle's employ might be thrown off
his. respectfully suspicious guard. Then
she gave him an address in Washington
Square, south, v
It was In the very center of the jttior-
ougbfare which bisects that quiet park
that the mishap occurred. Connie start
ed forward, in the seat her cheeks aflame
and eyes glowing with excitement, as the
engine of thenar gave a series of angry, ,
baffled snorts and alowed.
Burke Neville had succeeded, then! If
her uncle had bribed the chauffeur to spy
upon her," Burke had assuredly arranged
a counter-stroke with one of the mecha
nicians in the garage, as ho had prom
ised. ' Now, if he were only In time . '.
. ' A long, low, gray racer-drew-up arwifu .
The- deputy, lifting his eyes from his
notebook, saw the police captain stooping
beside the grate. The armchair had been
drawn close to the grate and stood upon
the little Oriental hearth rug. The grate
Itself was littered with a mass of burned
papers.
The police captain tried .to disengage
the largest of these charred papers from
the rest, but It turned to impalpable
powder between his fingers. He rose and
tatted with the deputy in a low tone.
' They turned together to their examina
tion of the body.
i
The body lay at the side of the room
farthest from the grate, exactly in front
of the tall pier glass on the wall. Its
head and shoulders rested on the bear
skin rug at the mirror's foot.
The police captain and the deputy
knelt beside this rug, matted with blood,
and examined the wound in 4he neck. '
They noted attentively the attitude in
which the body lay, the position of the ;
legs and arms.
The deputy crawled to look at the
right hand. He straightened, observing
with deep absorption the position of this
hand.'
r Suddenly he stooped and felt under
neath the desk. lie uttered an exclama-.-tlon
of triumph as he brought out from'
under the desk'-a short, thick-bladed
. knife.
Dr. Renfew was breathing quickly as
the deputy held the knife toward him.
"It belongs upon, the desk," the doctor
explained. "I brought it to him myself
last year when I visited the Mediterra
nean. It was not meant but he used it'
for a paper cutter!"
By
ly beside them and stopped, and its single
occupant inquired courteously if he could
be of any assistance. As her chauffeur
was bending abstractedly over the raised
hood of the motor, Connie opened the
door herself and descended.
"How do you do, Mr. Neville," she
said, adding blandly: "This is quite a
surprise. I wonder if you would mind
' taking me home in your car? Mine seems
to be disabled."
"I shall be delighted!" The young
man's looks did not belle his words.
"Give me your hand. Miss Ridgeway; lt
rather a step up. I can run you to your
home in no time." v
"You can bring the packages I left in
the car when you've started the engine
again, Williams," Cdnnle observed to the
perturbed chauffeur, who advanced in
decisively, as if not quite daring to in
tercept her. "I'm In no hurry for them."
"If you please, miss, I'll have the car
fixed in a few minutes. I can't quitetell
what's wrong, but It won't take me long
to adjust it," he begged. "I I must take
you back myself, miss. Excuse me, but
it's by Mr. Ridgeway's orders "
"All right, Connie?" Interposed Burke
hastily. Then he added In low, tenderly
exultant tones: "I've got the license, dear,
and the ling! Did you bring your veil?
That's good! Tie it on tight and hold
fast!"
The chauffeur gazed distractedly after
the low gray car as it sped swiftly up the
avenue and was lost in a maze of traffic:
but the two happy young people within it
had dismissed him from their thoughts.
Some of the blood which had made -Grant
Ridgeway a man of quick, irrevo
cable decision and force of action flowed
in Connie's veins also; a fact which her
uncle had perhaps overlooked in his arbi
trary plans.
Her little Ohln was set firmly, her red
lips pressed tightly together, but her eyes
were dark and misty as she looked
straight ahead of her; far ahead into the
future which she had taken into her own
hands. (
Carlton. Eschelby, lounging compla
cently over his breakfast at the club, lit
tle dreamed that what was taking place
at that precise moment would change the
probable course of bis whole future.
If Grant Ridgeway had been at the
bedside of his wife, instead of attending
the directors' meeting, Connie would not
have dared practice the cunning deceit
which she bad been guilty of in signing
Her uncle's name so cleverly to the order
which put the green car at her disposal
for the morning, thus enabling her to
elope with Burke Neville. Had that feat
, not been accomplished there remained
still a chance that her uncle's coercion
might have prevailed upon the young,
impressionable girl to bestow herself and
-iter own huge fortune upon the Engllsh
' man, with the result thatEschelby Tow
ers would have been, rehabilitated.
Instead of which, it way! destined,' In
the years to come, to pass into the hands
' of Jeremiah ! Griggs, the Chicago beef
packer, and still later, on his death, to be
: turned by his widow into a haven of rest
for London's destitute and hopeless ofies.
Could Eschelby have been vouchsafed
a glimpse Into the future and seen the
broad, green, aristocratic lawns of the
- Towers dotted with scattered groups of
. : pale, wan, hungry-eyed people, and little
. - children with their pinched faces, turned
- wondwrlngly to tho sunshine, his break
; v fast,wonM hm leeavastly-dlsturbed. . -
v The deputy pointed out to the police .
captain a stain upon the heavy. Inlaid
blade. He laid the knife upon the desk
and made note of t In his book. They
walked to the other side of the room and
talked together for a time lnaudlbly.
Then, almost Jubilant in his success, the
deputy coroner turned to Dr. Renfew.
"Tou'd think," he commented, conver
sationally, as though his business wire
finished, "possessing all precedent cir
cumstances, his Intimates ought to have
been able to forestall an event like this.
"An eccentric man, you sayand, per
haps, not happy in his family. Lonely
growing old. Saturday afternoon, and
his week's work finished. All his affairs
in order. He arranges his papers, clears
out this lower drawer, burns those papers
which he does not want made public.
Then !"
Dr. Renfew felt himself pale as death.
He was burning with recollections of
thirty years of professional morality,
professional ideals, which In the end had
come to this that he must, for others'
sake, shrink with the apprehensions of a
criminal and triumph by deceit. But he
met their eyes steadily.
"Then you make it T' he demanded.
The deputy stared in surprise. He had
felt, in the presence of this great author
ity, like a schoolboy before the master.
He was now suddenly impressed by the
extent to which' Dr. Renfew had aged
and weakened through the death of his
old friend. , ,
"Clearly suicide, Dr. Renfew," he an
swered, almost with compassloni "No
Jury can ever doubt it. Why, you can
even see where he cut his own thumb in
using the knife!"
ISABEL OSTRANDER
Illustrated by Curt Croerer
As it was) he meditated profoundly
whether he should spend a frigid evening
irv the Ridgeway drawing-room or go to
the play and take Dolly Drayton to sup
per afterward and decided on the latter.
In Grant Ridgeway's private office in
the towering skyscraper far downtown
John Tremont, his private secretary,
stood with troubled brow watching the
narrow white ribbon of the stock-ticker
as it slid sinuously through his fingers.
Two days before he had received pri
vate and confidential information, in a
bibulous moment from a clerk in the of
fices of the great Reuterdahla that they,
had definitely decided to suspend opera
tions almost at once on their vast copper
concessions in South America owing to
certain European financial conditions.
Ridgeway had coldly rejected his sec
retary's deferential attempt at a warn
ingand now $800,000 worth of stock
which he owned in those copper mines
was in Jeopardy. Some one else had evi
dently got wind of the Reuterdahls' in
tentions, which was evidenced by the
sudden, convulsive fluctuation in copper
that had caused such excitement at the
close of the market on the previous after
noon. Ridgeway had always prided himself
on his Judgment of character. He had
come to know John Tremont thoroughly
in the years of the younger man's serv
ice, and what he knew he relied upon.
Therefore, -when his absence was un
avoidable, and financial niatters of minor
Import wers to be transacted, he had
given his power of attorney to Tremont,
and the secretary had never failed him.
With the opening of the market that
morning copper had taken a violent up
ward leap, then fallen straight as a plum
met. Ridgeway had made it an invariable
rule never to allow himself, on any ac
count, to be communicated with at a dit
rectors' meeting, and now a fourth part
of his colossal fortune trembled m the
balance, Tremont, watching the ticker,
And knowing-what was coming, realized
tnWimmenslty of his moment
Hsheld the power of attorney; should
he V it? Dared he pit his casually
gained knowledge and untried judgment
against the experience and astute calcu
lations of the money monarch, who' had
dominated his kingdom, secure on his
throne, through' panic after panic, for a
score of years?
Eight hundred thousand of his em
ployer's money lay In the hollow of his
hand. Should he remain obediently qui
escent and let It slip through his fingers,
or, defying Ridgeway, act upon his own
initiative and save It? v ,
If by any chance the information
which he had received was erroneous,
and his Judgment failed if in acting
upon his sudden, unprecedented Impulse
he should lose his employer's money In
stead of saving -dt-for him, what would
the future mean? - " - : : -He
thought of Betty, the girl who was
waiting jto become his wife; ""the girl
whom Ridgeway had summarily dis
missed from the office a year ago as be
. ing Incompetent "!V-tl;--;"-.T:
It Is true, Betty had never been in
tended by nature for office worte She
was soft, and yielding, and womanly, and
very sweet, but she had no possible Idea
of time - or method, and, she could not
read her own shorthand. Grant Ridge
way did not require a -cloud of misty
-. brown hair, and melting hazel eyes; and