She ate very little and was totally unaware of the sensation she created in the dining room, especially over at the square table which was regarded as the property of visiting commercial travelers. It was her belief that she gave off an impression of dignity such as befitted an editor, and that a stern, businesslike air sat upon her so that none could mistake the fact that she was a woman of affairs. Truthfulness compels it to be recorded that she did not give this impression at all, but quite another one. She looked a lovely schoolgirl about to go canoeing with a box of bonbons on her lap. The commercial travelers who were so unfortunate as to be seated with their back toward her acquired cricks in their necks. After dinner (in a day or two she would learn not to refer to it as luncheon) she compelled herself to go up to her room and to remain there for a full fifteen minutes. After this exercise, so beneficial to her will, she descended and walked very slowly to the office of the _Free Press_. Having thus given free rein to her bent for repression, she became herself and _pounced_. She pounced upon the office; she pounced upon the shop. She made friends with the cylinder press much as an ordinary individual would make friends with a nice dog, and she talked to the little job press as to a kitten and became greatly excited over the great blade of the paper cutter, and wanted Tubal to give her an instant lesson in the art of sticking type. For two hours she played with things. Then, of a sudden, it occurred to her to wonder if a living could be made out of the outfit. It was essential that the paper should provide her with a living, and that it should go about the business of doing so almost instantly. At the moment when Carmel first set foot in Gibeon she was alone in the world. Old Man Nupley had been her last remaining relative. And--what was even more productive of unease of mind--she was the owner of exactly seventy-two dollars and sixteen cents! Therefore she pounced upon the records of the concern and very quickly discovered that Old Man Nupley had left her no placer mine out of which she could wash a pan of gold before breakfast. She had, she found, become the owner of the right to pay off a number of pressing debts. The plant was mortgaged. It owed for paper; there were installments due on the job press; there were bills for this, that, and the other thing which amounted to a staggering total.... She was not daunted, however, until she examined the credit side of the affair. The year had brought the _Free Press_ a grand total of five hundred and sixty-one paid subscriptions; the advertising, at the absurd rate of fifteen cents an inch, had been what politicians call scattering; and the job work had hardly paid for the trouble of keeping the dust off the press. The paper was dead on its feet, as so many rural weeklies are. She could not help thinking that her uncle Nupley had died in the nick of time to avoid bankruptcy.