ming a vain, egotistical,
commonplace woman.

It was during the process of this, her metamorphosis, that Peter Hope one
evening received a note from her announcing her intention of visiting him
the next morning at the editorial office of _Good Humour_. She added in
a postscript that she would prefer the interview to be private.

Punctually to the time appointed Miss Ramsbotham arrived. Miss
Ramsbotham, contrary to her custom, opened conversation with the weather.
Miss Ramsbotham was of opinion that there was every possibility of rain.
Peter Hope's experience was that there was always possibility of rain.

"How is the Paper doing?" demanded Miss Ramsbotham.

The Paper--for a paper not yet two years old--was doing well. "We expect
very shortly--very shortly indeed," explained Peter Hope, "to turn the
corner."

"Ah! that 'corner,'" sympathised Miss Ramsbotham.

"I confess," smiled Peter Hope, "it doesn't seem to be exactly a right-
angled corner. One reaches it as one thinks. But it takes some getting
round--what I should describe as a cornery corner."

"What you want," thought Miss Ramsbotham, "are one or two popular
features."

"Popular features," agreed Peter guardedly, scenting temptation, "are not
to be despised, provided one steers clear of the vulgar and the
commonplace."

"A Ladies' Page!" suggested Miss Ramsbotham--"a page that should make the
woman buy it. The women, believe me, are going to be of more and more
importance to the weekly press."

"But why should she want a special page to herself?" demanded Peter Hope.
"Why should not the paper as a whole appeal to her?"

"It doesn't," was all Miss Ramsbotham could offer in explanation.

"We give her literature and the drama, poetry, fiction, the higher
politics, the--"

"I know, I know," interrupted Miss Ramsbotham, who of late, among other
failings new to her, had developed a tendency towards impatience; "but
she gets all that in half a dozen other papers. I have thought it out."
Miss Ramsbotham leaned further across the editorial desk and sunk her
voice unconsciously to a confidential whisper. "Tell her the coming
fashions. Discuss the question whether hat or bonnet makes you look the
younger. Tell her whether red hair or black is to be the new colour,
what size waist is being worn by the best people. Oh, come!" laughed
Miss Ramsbotham in answer to Peter's shocked expression; "one cannot
reform the world and human nature all at once.