tor,
who had known me since I was a baby, gave me a chance. Father and Mother
made no objection to that. They thought it was merely a whim on my part.
But it wasn't a whim, as they found out later, for I wrote stuff for the
paper during my senior year, too, and when I did graduate I turned the
house upside down by getting a position on a newspaper in a big city.
Father and Mother forgave me after awhile, but not until I had been at
work on the other paper for a year.

"At first I did society, then clubs, went back to society again, and at
last my opportunity came to do general reporting. I was the only woman
on the staff who had a chance to go after the big stories. I have been
doing that only the last two years, though.

"Naturally, I made more money on the paper than I would as a
stenographer. I saved it, too. It was ever so much harder to hang on to
it in the city. There were so many more ways to spend it. But I kept on
putting it away, and, now, by going back on the paper every summer, I
will have enough to see me through college."

"But why do you wish so much for a college education when you are
already successful as a newspaper woman?" asked Elfreda.

"Because I want to be an author, or an editor, or somebody of importance
in the literary world, and I need these four years at college. Besides,
it's a good thing to bear the college stamp if one expects always to be
before the public," was the prompt retort.

"Suppose you were to find afterward that you weren't going to be before
the public," said Elfreda almost mischievously.

"But I shall be," persisted Kathleen, setting her jaws with a little
snap. "I always accomplish whatever I set out to do. On the paper they
used to say, 'Kathleen would sacrifice her best friend if by doing it
she could scoop the other papers.'"

"What do you mean by 'scoop the other papers'?" queried Elfreda
interestedly.

"Why, to get ahead of them with a story," explained Kathleen. "Suppose I
found out an important piece of news that no one else knew. If I gave it
to my paper and it appeared in it before any other newspaper got hold of
it then that would be a scoop."

"Oh, yes, I see," returned Elfreda. "Then a scoop might be news about
anything."

"Exactly," nodded Kathleen. "The harder the news is to get, the better
story it makes. People won't tell one anything, and when one does find
out something startling, then there are always a few persons who make a
fuss and try to k