that lives in sensitive finger-tips.
It was almost mechanical labour, and for that Flossie had more than a
taste, she had a positive genius. It was mechanical labour idealized
and reduced to a fine art, an art in which the personality of the
artist counted. The work displayed to perfection the prettiness of
Flossie's hands, from the rapid play of her fingers in sifting, and
their little fluttering, hovering movements in arranging, to the
exquisitely soft touches of the palms when she gathered all her
sheaves of notes into one sheaf, shaking, caressing, coaxing the rough
edges into line. Flossie worked with the rhythm and precision of a
machine; and yet humanly, self-consciously, almost coquettishly, as
under the master's eye.

But all this was of yesterday. To-day Flossie was different. She was
not quite so precise, so punctual as she had been. Something had gone
wrong with the bright little mechanism. It worked erratically, now
under protest, and now with spurts of terrifying activity. The fine
fly-wheels of thought had set off whirring on their own account and
had got mixed up with the rest of the machinery. Flossie had begun to
philosophise, to annoy destiny with questions. There was time for that
in the afternoon when the worst of the sorting was done. She was in
the stage of doubt so attractive in philosophers and women, asking
herself: Is knowledge possible? And if so, what do I know? She was
aware that there are certain insurpassable limits to human knowledge;
all the same, woman-like, she raised herself on tip-toe, and tried to
peep over the boundaries. What did she know? She knew that somebody
pitied her, because, poor little woman, she had to earn her own living
like a man. Well, she would not have to do that if he--if he--Yes, and
if he didn't? And how was she to know? And yet, and yet she had an
idea. Anybody may have an idea. Then the long desks became the green
tables where Flossie gambled with fate; trying--trying--trying to
force the invisible hand.

For with Flossie it was spring-time too. Under the little clerk's
correctness and demureness there ran and mingled with her blood the
warm undercurrent of a dream. The dream had come to her many springs
ago; and as Flossie grew plumper and rosier it grew plump and rosy
too. To be married (to a person hitherto unspecified in fancy, whose
features remained a blur or a blank), to be the mistress of a dear
little house (the house stood out very clear in Flossi