"There," said Mrs. Putnam, in the tone of one unexpectedly upheld in a rather bizarre opinion, "I've been saying all the time we ought to have a letter-file. But do you suppose you could buy one in Paris?" She spoke dubiously from the point of view of one who had bought nothing but gloves and laces and old prints in Paris.
Ellen answered with the certainty of one who had found the Y.W.C.A. in Paris: "I'm sure you can. Why, they could not do business a minute without letter-files."
Mrs. Putnam sank into a chair with a sigh of bewilderment and fatigue, and showed herself to be as truly a superior person as she looked by making the following speech to the newcomer: "The truth is, Miss ..."
"Boardman," supplied Ellen.
"Miss Boardman, the fact is that we are trying to do something which is beyond us, something we ought never to have undertaken. But we didn't know we were undertaking it, you see. And now that it is begun, it must not fail. All the wonderful American good-will which has materialized in that room full of packing-cases must not be wasted, must get to the people who need it so direly. It began this way. We had no notion that we would have so great an affair to direct. My niece and I were living here when the war broke out. Of course we gave all our own clothes we could spare and all the money we could for the refugees. Then we wrote home to our American friends. One of my letters was published by chance in a New York paper and copied in a number of others. Everybody who happened to know my name"—(Ellen heard afterwards that she was of the holy of holies of New England families)—"began sending me money and boxes of clothing. It all arrived so suddenly, so unexpectedly. We had to rent this place to put the things in. The refugees came in swarms. We found ourselves overwhelmed. It is impossible to find a single English-speaking stenographer who is not already more than overworked. The only help we get is from volunteers, a good many of them American society girls like that one you ..." she paused to invent a sufficiently savage characterization and hesitated to pronounce it. "Well, most of them are not quite so absurd as that. But none of them know any more than we do about keeping accounts, letters ..."
Ellen broke in: "How do you keep your accounts, anyhow? Bound ledger, or the loose-leaf system?"
They stared. "I have been careful to set down everything I could remember in a little note-book," said Mrs. Putnam.
Ellen looked about for a chair and sat down on it hastily. When she could speak again, after a moment of silent collecting of her forces she said: "Well, I guess the first thing to do is to get a letter-file. I don't know any French, so I probably couldn't get it. If one of you could go ..."
The pretty young lady sprang for her hat. "I'll go! I'll go, Auntie."
"And," continued Ellen, "you can't do anything till you keep copies of your letters and you can't make copies unless you have a typewriter. Don't you suppose you could rent one?"