Miss Cashell was her neighbor, a mysterious, pretty girl, with
wicked eyes and a hard face, and a manner so artless, effusive and
virtuous as to awaken the basest suspicions among her associates.
Miss Cashell dressed very charmingly, and never expressed an opinion
that would not well have become a cloistered nun, but the girls read
her colorless face, sensuous mouth, and sly dark eyes aright, and
nobody in Front Office "went" with Miss Cashell. Next her was Mrs.
Valencia, a harmless little fool of a woman, who held her position
merely because her husband had been long in the employ of the Hunter
family, and who made more mistakes than all the rest of the staff
put together. Susan disliked Mrs. Valencia because of the jokes she
told, jokes that the girl did not in all honesty always understand,
and because the little widow was suspected of "reporting" various
girls now and then to Mr. Hunter.

Finishing the two rows of desks, down opposite Miss Thornton again
were Miss Kelly and Miss Garvey, fresh-faced, intelligent Irish
girls, simple, merry, and devoted to each other. These two took
small part in what did not immediately concern them, but went off to
Confession together every Saturday, spent their Sundays together,
and laughed and whispered together over their ledgers. Everything
about them was artless and pure. Susan, motherless herself, never
tired of their talk of home, their mothers, their married sisters,
their cousins in convents, their Church picnics and concerts and
fairs, and "joshes"--"joshes" were as the breath of life to this
innocent pair. "Joshes on Ma," "joshes on Joe and Dan," "joshes on
Cecilia and Loretta" filled their conversations.

"And Ma yells up, 'What are you two layin' awake about?'" Miss
Garvey would recount, with tears of enjoyment in her eyes. "But we