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felt uneasy as she opened the telegram and read:
    C. W. B ERKLEY,
    S ECTION 12, Car 2,
    T RAIN No. 10,
    C HICAGO L IMITED.
    D INNER TONIGHT, 8:30 IN FAWCETT’S HONOR. Y OU MUST ARRANGE TO STAY OVER AND TAKE HIS PLACE . S PEECH EXPECTED. G REAT OPPORTUNITY. S EVERAL IMPORTANT MEN TO BE PRESENT. W ILL BOARD TRAIN HALF HOUR OUT OF C HICAGO.
    F REDERICK F AWCETT
    Carol sat in a daze and stared at the telegram. Well, at least there was nothing there that would give any information to those two prying men! But what kind of a situation was she in now? She couldn’t stay over and attend a dinner with a lot of men! Didn’t they know she was a woman?
    She examined the telegram but found no Mr. or Miss on either message or envelope, just her initials. Hadn’t she said Miss in her telegram?
    Surely they wouldn’t expect a woman to speak; yet the telegram that she had sent from the office gave all reason to suppose that the coming representative was fully capable of taking Fawcett’s place. What should she do? She grew hot and cold, and a constriction of fright came in her throat. Ah, now indeed she saw clearly that her mother had been right and this was no situation for Carol Berkley to be in!
    Gradually, however, out of the daze and horror her thoughts began to clear as she read and reread that message. Certain catchwords stuck in her mind: “His representative!” “Great opportunity!” and “Several important men present!” Ideas began to shape themselves in her thoughts. She began to wish she were a man and could make a speech to those men whom her employer had so earnestly desired to influence in favor of the company. Loyalty to her cause which she had not known she possessed came to the forefront. Her business mind longed to be able to use this opportunity. Of course she couldn’t. Of course she wouldn’t! But she wished it were possible all the same. She began to set about planning a speech for Frederick Fawcett to make in her place. She would outline to him several of the things she had heard Mr. Fawcett discuss with his brother Edgar before the latter left to go abroad.
    She began jotting them down on a pad, and as she wrote, other ideas came to her, and strangely, a funny story that had been told in connection with one of the items. Well, she couldn’t put that down. She mustn’t furnish wit as well as wisdom for this speech. If she knew Frederick Fawcett at all—though she had seen him but once briefly when he visited the office a year before—he was not the kind of man who would want a speech written for him, though of course he would not resent a few facts jotted down.
    When he came on the train she would give them to him and say that she must go on her way that night. She would get right into the subject she had come to talk about, and when she was through, he ought to have plenty of material for a speech. He was a Fawcett and it was his dinner; let him attend to it. She was only here to furnish facts and straighten out tangles. Of course when he saw that she was a girl he would not urge her. He would be glad to have her refuse. But it really was amusing that he had taken her for a man. How Betty would enjoy that! It would furnish good material for the letter she meant to write home tomorrow.
    The items to be incorporated in Mr. Frederick Fawcett’s speech were neatly tabulated and ready for him long before the landscape began to indicate that Chicago might be near, and Carol had made herself as immaculate as it is possible to do on board a train and was ready for her interview. An overwhelming sense of her responsibility began to come down upon her the last half hour of her wait, and she wished numberless times that she had never come; yet there was still an eagerness to make good and represent Mr. Fawcett as well as possible.
    The train paused for just an instant in a well-populated town and then hurried on again. Carol pressed her face against the windowpane and tried to see if anyone was getting on but