dinners, "dramatic," and "hotels," cleaned out her desk, and took
her fancy-work home, and "Fergy," a freckled youth who delighted in
calling himself a "cub," although he did little more than run
errands and carry copy to the press-room, might even be seen batting
madly at an unused typewriter when actual duties failed, so
inspiring was the new atmosphere.

Mrs. Burgoyne had a desk and a corner of her own, where her trim
figure might be seen daily for an hour or two, from ten o'clock
until the small girls came in to pick her up on their way home from
school for luncheon. Barry found her brimming with ideas. She
instituted the "Women's Page," the old familiar page of answered
questions, and formulas for ginger-bread, and brief romances, and
scraps of poetry, and she offered through its columns a weekly cash
prize for contributions on household topics. An exquisite doll
appeared in the window of the Mail office, a doll with a flower-
wreathed hat, and a ruffled dress, and a little parasol to match the
dress, and loitering little girls, drawn from all over the village
to study this dream of beauty, learned that they had only to enter a
loaf of bread of their own making in the Mail contest, to stand a
chance of carrying the little lady home. Beside the doll stood a
rifle, no toy, but a genuine twenty-two Marlin. for the boy whose
plans for a vegetable garden seemed the best and most practical,
Mrs. Burgoyne herself talked to the children when they came shyly in
to investigate. "She seems to want to know every child in the
county, the darling!" said Miss Watson to Fergy.

The Valentines, father and son, came into the Mail office one warm
June morning, to find the editor of the "Women's Page" busy at her
desk, with the sunlight lying in a bright bar across her uncovered