Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/199

Rh replied. "I'm only a kind of general-utility-office-girl."

"Never mind, never mind, never mind," he had smiled. "I won't tell."

Reba would have been satisfied to have remained general-utility-office-girl, but the eagerness she showed for her little job, and the diligence she put into it were sure to bear fruit sooner or later.

In the spring preceding her appointment to an official position, the Women's Alliance had begun to take part in the Red Cross activities of the city. It offered courses in First Aid, Home Nursing, Surgical Dressing, etc., to its members at a reduced fee, and lately had opened a Red Cross sewing-room.

When in the early winter Miss Ellsworth, the General Secretary of the Women's Alliance, found it necessary to place some one in charge of the increasing responsibilities of this department, she looked over her corps of helpers and, summoning Miss Park one day to her office, asked her how she thought Miss Jerome would do. Did she not possess the very qualifications most essential? She had taken all the Red Cross courses herself, and had passed them with high credit; had sewed endless hours at the Red Cross headquarters, and had proved expert and conscientious with both scissors and needle. Of course there would be night work. Many of the Red Cross classes met in the evening and some one would have to be on hand to take responsibility, but, as she roomed at the Alliance, she would not feel the pressure of this as much as some one who lived at a distance.

The result of that talk was that Rebecca Jerome found herself re-installed at another desk, in another