one by one out of a slot;--"why
there should not--be--a very satisfactory rose-garden, or
even--_two_--connected with it. None--whatever."

That was all the explanation he offered. But the Liberry Teacher asked
no more. "_Oh!_" she said rapturously.

"Then we may expect you to-morrow at seven?" he said; and smiled
politely and moved to the door. He walked out as matter-of-coursely as
if he had dropped in to ask the meaning of "circumflex," or who
invented smallpox, or the name of Adam's house-cat, or how long it would
take her to do a graduation essay for his daughter--or any such little
things that librarians are prepared for most days.

And instead--his neat gray elderly back seemed to deny it--he had left
with her, the Liberry Teacher, her, dusty, tousled, shopworn Phyllis
Braithwaite, an invitation to consider a Line of Work which was so
mysteriously Different that she had to look up the spotless De Guenther
reputation before she came!

One loses track of time, staring at a red George Washington poster, and
wondering about a future with a sudden Different Line in it.... It was
ten minutes past putting-out-children time! She stared aghast at the
ruthless clock, then created two Monitors for Putting Out at one royal
sweep. She managed the nightly eviction with such gay expedition that it
almost felt like ten minutes ago when the place, except for the
pride-swollen monitors, was cleared. While these officers watched the
commonalty clumping reluctantly upstairs toward the umbrella-rack, the
Liberry Teacher paced sedately around the shelves, giving the books that
routine straightening they must have before seven struck and the horde
rushed in again. It was really her relieving officer's work, but the
Liberry Teacher felt that her mind needed straightening, too, and this
always seemed to do it.

She looked, as she moved slowly down along the shelves, very much like
most of the librarians you see; alert, pleasant, slender, a little
dishevelled, a little worn. But there was really no librarian there.
There was only Phyllis Narcissa--that dreaming young Phyllis who had had
to stay pushed out of sight all the seven years that Miss Braithwaite
had been efficiently earning her living.

She let her mind stray happily as far as it would over the possibilities
Mr. De Guenther had held out to her, and woke to discover herself trying
to find a place under "Domestic Economy--Condiments" for "Five Little
Peppers and How They G