do so also on my
own account."

"But what subject do you want me to write upon?" said Florence, feeling
sick and faint, and yet not knowing at first how to reply.

"The subject is to be about women as they are. They are coming to the
front, and I want you to talk about them just as you please. You may be
satirical or not, as it strikes your fancy. I want you in especial to
attack them with regard to the aesthetic craze which is so much in
fashion now. If you like to show them that they look absolutely foolish
in their greenery-yallery gowns, and their hair done up in a wisp, and
all the rest of the thing, why, do so; then you can throw in a note
about a girl like my sister."

"Oh, come!" exclaimed Edith, from her distant table, "that would be
horribly unfair."

"Anyhow, I want you to write about woman in her improved aspects; that
is the main thing," said Franks. "Will you do it or will you not?"

Florence thought for a wild moment. It would be impossible for Bertha to
help her with this paper. She could not get information or
subject-matter in time. Dare she do it?

"I would rather not," she said.

Franks face fell.

"That is scarcely kind," he said; "you simply must do it."

"You will not refuse Tom," said Edith, who had apparently not been
listening, but who now jumped up and came forward. "What is it, Tom?
What do you want Florence to do?"

Tom briefly explained matters.

"It is for our new venture," he said. "Miss Aylmer is scarcely the
fashion yet, but she soon will be. It is to be a signed article--'Woman
in Her Many Crazes' can be the title. No one can know more on the matter
than she does."

"Oh, I'll prime you up with facts, if that is all," said Edith; "you
must do it: it would be most ungenerous and unkind to refuse Tom after
the way he has brought you to the front."

"But I must refuse," said Florence. She rose from the sofa; her face
looked pale with desperation.

"That horrid secret, whatever it is, is beginning to awake once more,"
thought the astute Edith to herself. She looked at Florence with what
Tom called her scientific face.

"Sit down," she said, "sit down. Why should you not do it?"

"Because I am no good at all with that class of paper."

"But your style will be invaluable, and you need not say much," said
Franks. "We want just the same simple terse, purely Saxon style. We want
one or two of your ideas. You need not make it three thousand words
long: it does not really ma