h she disagreed
was clearly impossible, at least impossible to one of her sincere and
thorough nature. But to find work was very difficult, indeed. After an
anxious waiting and searching, she was one day surprised by receiving
through Charles Osmond's friend, Mr. Crutchley, an introduction to the
editor of a well-known and widely read paper. Every one congratulated
her, but she could not feel very hopeful, it seemed too good to prove
true it was, in fact, so exactly the position which she would herself
have chosen that it seemed unlikely it should ever really be hers. Still
of course she hoped, and arrangements were made for an interview with
Mr. Bircham, editor and part proprietor of the "Daily Review."

Accordingly, one hot summer morning Erica dressed herself carefully,
tried to look old and serious, and set off with Tom to the city.

"I'll see you safe to the door of the lion's den," said Tom as they made
their way along the crowded streets. "I only wish I could be under the
table during the interview; I should like to see you doing the dignified
journalist."

"I wouldn't have you for the world!" said Erica, laughing. Then, growing
grave again, "Oh, Tom! How I wish it were over! It's worse than three
hundred visits to a dentist rolled into one."

"Appalling prospect!" said Tom. "I can exactly picture what it will
be. BIRCHAM! Such a forbidding name for an editor. He'll be a sort of
editorial Mr. Squeers; he'll talk in a loud, blustering way, and you'll
feel exactly like a journalistic Smike."

"No," said Erica, laughing. "He'll be a neat little dapper man, very
smooth and bland, and he'll talk patronizingly and raise my hopes, and
then, in a few days' time will send me a polite refusal."

"Tell him at once that you hero-worship Sir Michael Cunningham, the
statesman of the age, the most renowned 'Sly Bacon!'"

"Tom, do be quiet!" said Erica. "I wish you had never thought of that
horrid name."

"Horrid! I mean to make my fortune out of it. If you like, you can offer
the pun on reasonable terms to Mr. Bircham."

"Why, this is Fleet Street! Doesn't it lead out of this?" said Erica,
with an indescribable feeling in the back of her neck. "We must be quite
near."

"Nearer than near," said Tom. "Now then, left wheel! Here we are, you
see. It's a mercy that you turn pink with fright, not green like the
sea-green Robespierre. Go in looking as pretty as that, and Mr. Squeers
will graciously accept your services, un