r to be gratified, and he
was also supposed to decide by inquiry or intuition whether he should so
far intrude on Mr. Wintermuth's privacy as to present the stranger's
name. He had come to be uncommonly adept at this, but the spectacle of
this dark-eyed young woman was quite beyond the gamut of his routine
experience. In a sort of charmed coma he surveyed the visitor, and found
himself starting to inform the President of her arrival without a
preliminary inquisition even to the extent of inquiring the nature of her
business with that gentleman. Accordingly, after the briefest of
intervals she found herself ushered into the office of an elderly
gentleman who rose courteously to welcome her.

"Miss Maitland, I think. You are the niece of Silas Osgood of Boston?"
he inquired. "Mr. Osgood wrote that I might expect to see you here."

The girl handed him the letter.

"Here are my credentials," she said, with a smile. "I am also an envoy
extraordinary from my aunt, Miss Wardrop, on a diplomatic mission
connected with the burning of a long-cherished but doubtfully valuable
lamp shade!"

"Won't you sit down, please? You will pardon me if I read your uncle's
letter?" Mr. Wintermuth responded.

Helen assented, and the other leisurely read the few lines the letter
contained. In the interim the visitor glanced about the room to
apprehend the setting of the scene into which she was now come.
Presently her host spoke.

"I gather from what your uncle says that you have come not to call on an
old friend of his, but to look at maps and daily reports and surveys, and
find out what a fire insurance company is really like. And although I am
quite old enough to be your father, I would really much rather you had
come to see me," he remarked pleasantly.

"If I had known you before, I undoubtedly would have done so," the girl
smilingly returned.

"Times have changed since I was a youngster," Mr. Wintermuth went on. "I
presume all elderly people say so, and I am afraid we are apt to make it
at once a refrain and a lament, but nevertheless it is true. Forty years
ago young ladies did not feel any interest in business such as fire
insurance, or if they did they kept it to themselves. But," he added, "I
am the gainer in this work of time, to-day at least, for it brings me the
pleasure of a call from you."

"I'm afraid my interest is rather sudden and hasn't any very deep
foundation," his visitor admitted. "I haven't felt it