on. Perhaps, a very few
were kindly hearted enough to feel a touch of sympathy for this ruin of
a life.

Of such was Smithson, a member of the executive staff, who did not
hesitate to speak his mind, though none too forcibly. As for that,
Smithson, while the possessor of a dignity nourished by years of
floor-walking, was not given to the holding of vigorous opinions. Yet,
his comment, meager as it was, stood wholly in Mary's favor. And he
spoke with a certain authority, since he had given official attention to
the girl.

Smithson stopped Sarah Edwards, Mr. Gilder's private secretary, as she
was passing through one of the departments that morning, to ask her if
the owner had yet reached his office.

"Been and gone," was the secretary's answer, with the terseness
characteristic of her.

"Gone!" Smithson repeated, evidently somewhat disturbed by the
information. "I particularly wanted to see him."

"He'll be back, all right," Sarah vouchsafed, amiably. "He went
down-town, to the Court of General Sessions. The judge sent for him
about the Mary Turner case."

"Oh, yes, I remember now," Smithson exclaimed. Then he added, with a
trace of genuine feeling, "I hope the poor girl gets off. She was a nice
girl--quite the lady, you know, Miss Edwards."

"No, I don't know," Sarah rejoined, a bit tartly. Truth to tell, the
secretary was haunted by a grim suspicion that she herself was not quite
the lady of her dreams, and never would be able to acquire the graces of
the Vere De Vere. For Sarah, while a most efficient secretary, was not
in her person of that slender elegance which always characterized her
favorite heroines in the novels she affected. On the contrary, she was
of a sort to have gratified Byron, who declared that a woman in her
maturity should be plump. Now, she recalled with a twinge of envy that
the accused girl had been of an aristocratic slimness of form. "Oh, did
you know her?" she questioned, without any real interest.

Smithson answered with that bland stateliness of manner which was the
fruit of floor-walking politeness.

"Well, I couldn't exactly say I knew her, and yet I might say, after a
manner of speaking, that I did--to a certain extent. You see, they put
her in my department when she first came here to work. She was a good
saleswoman, as saleswomen go. For the matter of that," he added with a
sudden access of energy, "she was the last girl in the world I'd take
for a thief." He displayed some ev