y."

"Some of it I do. The 'Lunch-Time Chats'--"

"And some of it you think is vulgar."

"One has to suit one's style to the matter," propounded Hal. "'Kitty the
Cutie' isn't supposed to be a college professor."

"I hate to have you think me vulgar," she insisted.

"Oh, come!" he protested; "that isn't fair. I don't think _you_ vulgar,
Milly."

"I like to have you call me Milly," she said.

"It seems quite natural to," he answered lightly.

"I've thought sometimes I'd like to try my hand at a regular news
story," she went on, in a changed tone. "I think I've got one, if I
could only do it right; one of those facts-behind-the-news stories that
you talked to us about. Do you remember meeting me with Max Veltman the
other night?"

"Yes."

"Did you think it was queer?"

"A little."

"A girl I used to know back in the country tried to kill herself. She
wrote me a letter, but it didn't get to me till after midnight, so I
called up Max and got him to go with me down to the Rookeries district
where she lives. Poor little Maggie! She got caught in one of those
sewing-girl traps."

"Some kind of machinery?"

"Machinery? You don't know much about what goes on in your town, do
you?"

"Not as much as an editor ought to know--which is everything."

"I'll bring you Maggie's letter. That tells it better than I can. And I
want to write it up, too. Let me write it up for the paper." She leaned
forward and her eyes besought him. "I want to prove I can do something
besides being a vulgar little 'Kitty the Cutie.'"

"Oh, my dear," he said, half paternally, but only half, "I'm sorry I
hurt you with that word."

"You didn't mean to." Her smile forgave him. "Maggie's story means
another fight for the paper. Can we stand another?"

He warmed to the possessive "we." "So you know about our warfare," he
said.

"More than you think, perhaps. The books you gave me aren't the only
things I study. I study the 'Clarion,' too."

"Why?" he asked, interested.

"Because it's yours." She looked at him straightly now. "Can you pull it
through, Boss?"

"I think so. I hope so."

"We've lost a lot of ads. I can reckon that up, because I had some
experience in the advertising department of the Certina shop, and I know
rates." She pursed her lips with a dainty effect of careful computation.
"Somewhere about four thousand a week out, isn't it?"

"Four thousand, three hundred and seventy in store business last week."

The talk s