The Priceless Pearl

								

position in any case.
Mr. Wood's secretary, with whom so far all the negotiations had
been carried on, had impressed upon her the necessity of being
punctual--"eleven precisely," he had said, for it seemed Mr. Wood was
going to Mexico that afternoon. And so Augusta, who was punctual by
nature, had found herself in the office ten minutes ahead of time. She
sat listening to the telephone girl and watching a door which bore
the simple inscription, "Mr. Wood." And just behind that door a tall
sunburned man in the neighborhood of thirty was standing, slapping the
pockets of his blue serge clothes and saying, "Griggs, I have a feeling
I've forgotten something. What is it I've forgotten, Griggs?"
The desk was as bare as a desk ought to be when its owner is going away
for two months. Griggs ran his eye proudly over it.
"No, Mr. Wood," he said. "I don't think anything has been forgotten.
Nothing was left except the letter to the President, the Spanish
dictionary and the Mexican currency. All that has been attended to."
He consulted a list held in the palm of his hand.
"It was something of my own," said Wood, and he eyed his secretary with
an air that might have appeared stern but was merely concentrated, when
the door opened and the office boy came in and said, "Miss Stone says
she's notified him that there's a lady there to see him, and will we
let her in to him?"
"A lady?" said Griggs severely.
"That's it," said Wood. "It's the governess for my sister. Think of my
nearly forgetting that!"
"You ought not be worried about such things," said Griggs, as if he
were very bitter about it, "with all your responsibilities."
Wood smiled. It wasn't true, but it was the way one's secretary ought
to feel.
"I'd have a lot more to worry me," he said, "if I were married myself."
"You certainly would," answered Griggs, who was married.
"But will we let her in to him?" said the office boy, who clung to this
formula, although the head clerk was trying to break him of it.
"You may let her come in," said Griggs, as if he would perish rather
than allow his chief to hold verbal communication with anything so low
as an office boy, and as he spoke he silently gave Wood a pale-blue
card--one of a dozen on which in beautiful block letters he had written
down the names, degrees, past experience, with notes on personal
appearance, of all the candidates for position of governess in the
household of Wood's sister, Mrs. Conway.
"This is the best of them?" said Wood, and he ran his eye rapidly over
the card, which read:
"Augusta Exeter, A. B. Rutland College; Ph. D., Columbia University,
specialized in mathematics and household management."
He looked up. "Queer combination, isn't it?"
"I thought it was just what you wanted," answered Griggs reproachfully.
"Nothing queerer than that," said Wood, and went on: "Six-month dietary
expert--one year training--appearance, pleasing." He glanced at his
secretary. It amused him to think of the discreet Griggs appraising the