Mary Ware's Promised Land

That was the last letter which Phil received from Mary for many weeks, / although he wrote regularly to the address she gave of the / boarding-house on the sycamore-shaded street. Several times she sent a / postal with a scribbled line of acknowledgment, but the days were too / full for personal affairs, and at night she was too tired to attend to / her own correspondence, after pounding on the typewriter so many hours.

She had attacked her new duties with all the zeal and force that had / characterized her "snake-killings" on the desert. Habit alone made her / do that, and pride added another motive. She was determined to justify / Madam Chartley's opinion of her. Not being able to write shorthand she / worked overtime to gain extra speed on the typewriter, so that she might / take dictation directly on the machine. Now, all the neatness and system / which had made her housekeeping so perfect in its way, made her a / painstaking and methodical little business woman. Her neatly typed pages / were a joy to Mrs. Blythe. Her system of filing and indexing brought / order out of confusion in the topsy-turvy desk, and she soon had the / various reports which they referred to daily, labelled and arranged in / the different pigeon-holes as conveniently as the spice boxes and cereal / jars had been in the kitchen cabinet at home.