his side.

"I hope there was nothing disturbing in your letters?" she said.

"Not very," he replied. "It is only what I expected."

"Every one," she continued, "has been admiring your secretary. We all
thought that she had such a beautiful face."

"She is not my secretary," he explained. "She came in place of her
brother, who met with a slight accident just as he was starting."

Somehow or other, he fancied that Elisabeth was pleased.

"I didn't think that it was like you to have a woman secretary," she
remarked.

He smiled as he replied:

"Miss Thurnbrein is a very earnest worker and a real humanitarian. She
has written articles about woman labour in London."

"Julia Thurnbrein!" Elisabeth exclaimed. "Yes, I have read them. If
only I had known that that was she! I should have liked so much to have
talked to her. Do you think that she would come and see me, or let me
come and see her? We really do want to understand these things, and it
seems to me, somehow, that people like Julia Thurnbrein, and all those
who really understand, keep away from us wilfully. They won't exchange
thoughts. They believe that we are their natural enemies. And we
aren't, you know. There isn't any one I'd like to meet and talk with so