what Mrs. March thought, too; 'Every Other
Week' was such a very good place that he could not conscientiously
neglect any means of having his work favorably considered there; if Mrs.
March's interest in it would act upon her husband, ought not he to know
just how much she thought of him as a writer? "Did she like the poem."

Miss Triscoe could not recall that Mrs. March had said anything about
the poem, but she launched herself upon the general current of Mrs.
March's liking for Burnamy. "But it wouldn't do to tell you all she
said!" This was not what he hoped, but he was richly content when she
returned to his personal history. "And you didn't know any one when, you
went up to Chicago from--"

"Tippecanoe? Not exactly that. I wasn't acquainted with any one in the
office, but they had printed somethings of mine, and they were willing
to let me try my hand. That was all I could ask."

"Of course! You knew you could do the rest. Well, it is like a romance.
A woman couldn't have such an adventure as that!" sighed the girl.

"But women do!" Burnamy retorted. "There is a girl writing on the paper
now--she's going to do the literary notices while I'm gone--who came to
Chicago from Ann Arbor, with no more chance than I had, and who's made
her way single-handed from interviewing up."

"Oh," said Miss Triscoe, with a distinct drop in her enthusiasm. "Is she
nice?"

"She's mighty clever, and she's nice enough, too, though the kind of
journalism that women do isn't the most dignified. And she's one of the
best girls I know, with lots of sense."

"It must be very interesting," said Miss Triscoe, with little interest
in the way she said it. "I suppose you're quite a little community by
yourselves."

"On the paper?"

"Yes."

"Well, some of us know one another, in the office, but most of us don't.
There's quite a regiment of people on a big paper. If you'd like to come
out," Burnamy ventured, "perhaps you could get the Woman's Page to do."

"What's that?"

"Oh, fashion; and personal gossip about society leaders; and recipes for
dishes and diseases; and correspondence on points of etiquette."

He expected her to shudder at the notion, but she merely asked, "Do
women write it?"

He laughed reminiscently. "Well, not always. We had one man who used
to do it beautifully--when he was sober. The department hasn't had any
permanent head since."

He was sorry he had said this, but it did not seem to shock her, and no
doubt