them. "Say, Cale, did you
notice the color of her eyes?"

"Yes; they're gray."

"I thought so, too, show day, and at Kedge Halloway's lecture; but, say,
Cale, they're kind of changeable. When she come in upstairs with you and
Fisbee, they were jest as blue!--near matched the color of our ribbons."

"Gee!" repeated Mr. Tipworthy.

When the editorial chamber had been made so Beat that it almost
glowed--though it could never be expected to shine as did Fisbee and
Caleb Parker and Ross Schofield that morning--the editor took her seat
at the desk and looked over the few items the gentlemen had already
compiled for her perusal. Mr. Parker explained many technicalities
peculiar to the Carlow "Herald," translated some phrases of the
printing-room, and enabled her to grasp the amount of matter needed to
fill the morrow's issue.

When Parker finished, the three incompetents sat watching the little
figure with the expression of hopeful and trusting terriers. She knit
her brow for a second--but she did not betray an instant's indecision.

"I think we should have regular market reports," she announced,
thoughtfully. "I am sure Mr. Harkless would approve. Don't you think he
would?" She turned to Parker.

"Market reports!" Mr. Fisbee exclaimed. "I should never have thought of
market reports, nor, do I imagine, would either of my--my associates. A
woman to conceive the idea of market reports!"

The editor blushed. "Why, who would, dear, if not a woman, or a
speculator, and I'm not a speculator; and neither are you, and that's
the reason you didn't think of them. So, Mr. Parker, as there is so much
pressure, and if you don't mind continuing to act as reporter as well as
compositor until after to-morrow, and if it isn't too wet--you must take
an umbrella--would it be too much bother if you went around to all the
shops--_stores_, I mean--to all the grocers', and the butchers', and
that leather place we passed, the tannery?--and if there's one of those
places where they bring cows, would it be too much to ask you to
stop there?--and at the flour-mill, if it isn't too far?--and at the
dry-goods store? And you must take a blank-book and sharpened pencil,
And will you price everything, please, and jot down how much things
are?"

Orders received, the impetuous Parker was departing on the instant, when
she stopped him with a little cry: "But you haven't any umbrella!"
And she forced her own, a slender wand, upon him; it bore a cunnin