le it on the grounds."

"Let me try it!" said Una. "Give me a month's trial as salesman on the
ground, and see what I can do. Just run some double-leaded classified
ads. and forget it. You can trust me; you know you can. Why, I'll write
my own ads., even: 'View of Long Island Sound, and beautiful rolling
hills. Near to family yacht club, with swimming and sailing.' I know I
could manage it."

Mr. Truax pretended not to hear, but she rose, leaned over his desk,
stared urgently at him, till he weakly promised: "Well, I'll talk it
over with Mr. Fein. But you know it wouldn't be worth a bit more salary
than you're getting now. And what would I do for a secretary?"

"I don't worry about salary. Think of being out on Long Island, now that
spring is coming! And I'll find a successor and train her."

"Well--" said Mr. Truax, while Una took her pencil and awaited dictation
with a heart so blithe that she could scarcely remember the symbols for
"Yours of sixteenth instant received."

CHAPTER XXII

Of the year and a half from March, 1914, to the autumn of 1915, which
Una spent on Long Island, as the resident salesman and director of
Crosshampton Hill Gardens, this history has little to say, for it is a
treatise regarding a commonplace woman on a job, and at the Gardens
there was no job at all, but one long summer day of flushed laughter. It
is true that "values were down on the North Shore" at this period, and
sales slow; it is true that Una (in high tan boots and a tweed suit from
a sporting-goods house) supervised carpenters in constructing a bungalow
as local office and dwelling-place for herself. It is true that she
quarreled with the engineer planning the walks and sewers, usurped
authority and discharged him, and had to argue with Mr. Truax for three
hours before he sustained her decision. Also, she spent an average of
nine hours a day in waiting for people or in showing them about, and
serving tea and biscuits to dusty female villa-hunters. And she herself
sometimes ran a lawn-mower and cooked her own meals. But she had
respect, achievement, and she ranged the open hills from the stirring
time when dogwood blossoms filled the ravines with a fragrant mist,
round the calendar, and on till the elms were gorgeous with a second
autumn, and sunsets marched in naked glory of archangels over the
Connecticut hills beyond the flaming waters of Long Island Sound.
Slow-moving, but gentle, were the winter months, for she b