Elizabeth Garver Jordan

“ She lifted the package from its resting-place and untied the string with listless ringers. As she tore off the wrapping-paper and raised the lid of the long box, she uttered a little exclamation of delight which made Randall, at the next desk, look up from his work with a sympathetic smile. Carefully tucked away under waxed paper, and resting on a bed of moss and ferns, were exquisite red roses, whose breath seemed like a greeting from the southern land to which her homesick soul had but now turned. The reporter buried her face in their dewy fragrance, while her eyes for a moment grew dim. ”

“ The air is full of the perfume of old-fashioned flowers that grow in every garden. You will find bowls of them in your room at night, and the room itself will smell of lavender. Go there, take Lubbock's 'Pleasures of Life' with you,—and forget for forty-eight hours that there is a newspaper in the world. ”

“ There was no sound in the room but the clatter of typewriters, the scratching of the swift pens of her associates, and the shuffling feet of office boys who filed in and out with messages and copy. In the pitiless glare of the electric light the faces round her looked worn and haggard. She sent her story to the night city editor's desk, and leaning back in her chair in the moment of relaxation after a mental strain, sympathized with herself and her fellow-workers with the intensity of overtired nerves. Was it all worth while? she asked herself wearily, as she had asked many times before. ”

“ Every womanly woman is happiest in the home of a loving wife, and you are all womanliness. Good-night. Take the roses home with you, and let them speak of rest, and peace, and happy dreams."
There was a puzzled look in Miss Bancroft's brown eyes as she laid the letter down. She speculated over it on her way home that night, and the next day, to her dismay, she discovered that the mystery was making her self-conscious. She found herself looking with suspicious eyes at her good friends on "The Searchlight." ”

“ There is nothing disrepectful in the honest love of a man, even though that man is unknown. I know there are many others who love you, too. I do not know whether there is any one who has won your heart. ”

“ The frank and warm camaraderie of her associates, which had been so pleasant a feature of her journalistic life, seemed to her now, in some spots, the cloak of a deeper affection. She tried to analyze the feeling back of the courtesies that were shown her, and the invariable good fellowship with which she was treated. ”

“ At such times I long to say something to comfort you—but I may not. Will it interest you to know that you have a devoted and unselfish friend to whom you are more than all the world? If it will, remember this. Please accept the roses as a small reminder of the southern land we both love."
Miss Bancroft experienced a revival of interest in life. She read the letter again, seeking vainly for some clew which might lead to discovery of the writer. Her thoughts swept quickly around the circle of her friends and associates on "The Searchlight." Assuredly one of these was the man. ”