suppose that in two more years I shall be editing a
mothers' column on an agricultural weekly."

"Norberg would be delighted to get you," mused Von
Gerhard, "and it would be day work instead of night
work."

"And you would send me a weekly bulletin on Dawn's
health, wouldn't you, Ernst?" pleaded Norah. "And you'd
teach her to drink beer and she shall grow so fat that
the Spalpeens won't know their auntie."

At last--"How much do they pay?" I asked, in
desperation. And the thing that had appeared so absurd
at first began to take on the shape of reality.

Von Gerhard did speak to Norberg of the Post. And
I am to go to Milwaukee next week. The skeleton of the
book manuscript is stowed safely away in the bottom of my
trunk and Norah has filled in the remaining space with
sundry flannels, and hot water bags and medicine flasks,
so that I feel like a schoolgirl on her way to
boarding-school, instead of like a seasoned old newspaper
woman with a capital PAST and a shaky future. I wish
that I were chummier with the Irish saints. I need them
now.



CHAPTER VI