up before her unwilling mental vision a picture of the years
gone by? Who shall explain the apprehensiveness which came unbidden,
causing known certainties to be forgotten because of the disquieting
questionings which demanded an unanswerable reply.

"I have dropped my flower!" Alice exclaimed, as she searched up and down
the walk.

"There are plenty more right beside you," suggested her father,
surprised.

"I must find this very one," she insisted, with an expression on her
face which Eleanor understood. "Flowers have personalities just as we
have--and perhaps their joy in life is in giving inspiration, too."

XII

Whenever a full realization of the fact that he had actually embarked
upon a business career came to him, Allen was completely overpowered by
his sense of its importance. He blessed books and book agents, since
they had been the indirect means to this much-desired end. His chance
had come to him just when his optimism had begun to waver, with the
hydra's heads multiplying beyond belief; and he proposed to show Alice
especially, and Mr. Gorham incidentally, that he was no mere callow
youth idly waiting by the wayside. There could be no doubt whatever
regarding his intentions, but a captious critic might have suggested
that it would have been the part of wisdom to allow himself ample time
for demonstration. Rome was not built in a day, nor does history record
that youth ever acquired the experience of ripe middle age in a like
space of time; but Allen's instructors at college would have given
testimony that he was not strong in history. So it was that he bruised
his head frequently at first against the stone wall of precedent and
practice, in this particular instance made less yielding by the fact
that the vice-president of the Consolidated Companies distinctly
resented his addition to the office force.

These first busy weeks were giving Allen ample opportunity to gain
experience. The impetuosity of youth would require time before it became
tempered to the degree which would make it wholly reliable; but his
enthusiasm, his indefatigable energy, and, above all, his absolute
belief in and loyalty to the head of the Companies and the corporation
itself were elements of genuine promise. There were moments which tried
the patience, but Allen's mistakes were so much the result of
over-eagerness and consequent over-reaching that Gorham's annoyance was
always short-lived. Even the errors gave evidence