losing tone, or gentleness, or a radiant, fearless spritit.

At the office of the newspaper where she filled the post of secretary
and typist, she was a sort of cheerful institution to smooth worried
faces and call up a smile amidst the irritability and frowns.

Blunderers went to her with their troubles, and felt fairly secure if
she would break the news of the blunder or mistake to the irritable and
awe-inspiring chief. He, in his turn, would be irritable before her,
but never with her; and it was a recognised fact among the staff that
she was almost the only one who could make him laugh.

Thus a few intervening years passed happily enough, briging Lorraine to
her thirty-first birthday and Hal to her twenty-fifth, without any
further upheavals to strike a discordant note across the daily round,
except such inevitable trials as Lorraine continued to meet through her
mother, and Hal through her devotion to a non-comprehending brother.
Only, while they had each other and their work, such difficulties were
not hard to cope with; and life sang a gayer, happier song to them than
she usually sings to the mere pleasure-seekers.

For work in a wide interesting sphere is a priceless boon, and the men
who would condemn women solely to pleasure-seeking and the four walls
of their home are showing the very acme of selfishness, in that they
are endeavouring to keep solely and entirely for themselves one of the
best things life has to give.