“Yes, sit down at that desk. Or do you want a typewriter?”
“Well, if you can lend me one,” answered Mary Louise. She had learned typing at school, thinking it would come in handy in her chosen profession.
So she typed the letter carefully and put it into her handbag.
As she stepped out into the open air again she saw by one of the big clocks on the street that it was only a little past ten. Two hours to wait until she saw her father! Two hours, with nothing to do. It seemed rather ridiculous that she should be so idle when everybody else was apparently so busy. The throngs of people on the streets rushed along as if there were not a minute to lose.
“I can go in here and buy some handkerchiefs for Mrs. Hilliard for Christmas,” she thought, as she entered a department store. All the rest of her gifts had been bought and wrapped up long ago; they were piled neatly in a box at home, ready for her mother to distribute to her family and her friends on Christmas morning.
The organ in the store was playing Christmas music; Mary Louise lingered for a while after she made her purchase to listen to it. She felt very happy because her father was coming.
She returned to the hotel about eleven, put Mrs. Hilliard’s gift on her desk and went down to one of the reception rooms to wait for her father. The Walder girls came in—they both had a half holiday so that they might start home early—and they said good-bye to Mary Louise and wished her a merry Christmas.
The slow hands of the clock crept towards twelve. At five minutes of the hour her father came.
Mary Louise saw him the minute he opened the door and rushed to him as if it had been years, and not days, since their parting.
“Oh, Dad, this is grand!” she cried. “I was so afraid you wouldn’t be able to get here. Are you very busy?”