Edith and John: A Story of Pittsburgh

by Franklin Smith Farquhar

"I used to come here often."

"I never saw you here before."

"No—I did not like the last secretary."

"Then you will come again?"

"I anticipate that I shall."

"Then we may become better acquainted?" dropping his pen.

"If you wish it, Mr. Winthrope," she answered, looking at her hands lying on the arms of the chair, then up to John, who was taking up his pen again to reach for a new dip of ink.

At that moment the door opened and Mr. Jarney and Miss Barton entered. He carried his hat and cane in one hand, and arrived at his desk in time to see John completing the signing of his name to the first letter of the pile before him.

"Mr. Winthrope," he said, "you have been remiss in your duties. Edith, I am afraid you would make a poor overseer in this office."

John, thereupon, fell to work with a will to expedite the signing of the letters that had been so woefully neglected during his entertaining tete-a-tete with Edith.