there was nothing positive, nothing definite, about her. She was neither
tall nor short, neither fat nor thin, neither grave nor gay. She gave
the impression of a young person of the feminine gender--that, and
nothing more. She was plainly dressed, like thousands of other girls,
in darkish blue jacket and skirt and white shirt waist. Her boots and
gloves were neat, her hair simply and well arranged. Perhaps in these
respects--in neatness and taste--she did excel the average, which is
depressingly low. But in a city where more or less strikingly pretty
women, bent upon being seen, are as plentiful as the blackberries of
Kentucky's July--in New York no one would have given her a second look,
this quiet young woman screened in an atmosphere of self-effacement.

She applied to the head clerk. It so happened that need for another
typewriter had just arisen. She got a trial, showed enough skill to
warrant the modest wage of ten dollars a week; she became part of the
office force of twenty or twenty-five young men and women similarly
employed. As her lack of skill was compensated by industry and
regularity, she would have a job so long as business did not slacken.
When it did, she would be among the first to be let go. She shrank into
her obscure niche in the great firm, came and went in mouse-like
fashion, said little, obtruded herself never, was all but forgotten.

Nothing could have been more commonplace, more trivial than the whole
incident. The name of the girl was Hallowell--Miss Hallowell. On the
chief clerk's pay roll appeared the additional information that her
first name was Dorothea. The head office boy, in one of his occasional
spells of "freshness," addressed her as Miss Dottie. She looked at him
with a puzzled expression; it presently changed to a slight, sweet
smile, and she went about her business. There was no rebuke in her
manner, she was far too self-effacing for anything so positive as the