Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the city room.djvu/204

 with pride. A few were too cold or too ambitious, she thought, to care for any one. The barrier of which her unknown friend wrote was a tangible one. It concealed him well.

Miss Bancroft took the note and flowers home with her that night and fell asleep with the fragrance of the roses filling her rooms. It greeted her again as she awoke refreshed and ready to take up the work of the day in her usual blithe spirit. The morning sun, pouring through her open windows, fell lovingly on the great roses which some one had lavished on her. She speculated over them pleasantly as she dressed, but after she reached the office its rush and swirl banished them and the sender from her mind.

She had almost forgotten both when the second letter came exactly a week later. The long box and the creamy envelope lay side by side on her desk as she entered " The Searchlight's" city room late Friday night, and she broke into a gay smile even over these prosaic things. It made Randall, sitting next to her, speculate long and moodily as to the giver. There was no uncertainty