"Please, please," said the editor hurriedly and humbly--"it's not my fault. It _is_ a lady who does it generally, but she had to go away--and I couldn't get any one else to do it. And I didn't see--till after you'd been the other day--that it wasn't fair. And I was going to ask if _you_ would do it--the correspondence, I mean--just for this week. I wish you would!" "Could I?" she said doubtfully. "Of course you could! And if you'd bring the copy on Monday--about two columns, you know--we could go through it together and----" "Well, I'll try," said Kitty abruptly, reaching out for the sheaf of letters which he was gathering together. And now who was happier than Kitty, seated behind her locked bedroom door advising "Dieu-donnee" and "Shy Fairy" and "Contadina" out of the unfathomable depths of her girlish inexperience. Her advice looked wonderfully practical, though, in print, she thought, as with a thrill of pride and joy she corrected the first proofs. And she wrote stories, too, and they, too, were printed. It was indeed a bright and beautiful world. Aunt Eliza stayed away for five glorious weeks. Kitty, with an enthralling sense of reckless wickedness, gave up her useless music lessons, and in going three times a week to the office experienced a glowing consciousness of the joy and dignity of honest toil. The editor, by the way, during these five weeks fell in love with Kitty, exactly as he had known he would do when first he saw her grey eyes. Kitty had never been so happy in all her life. The child honestly believed hers to be the happiness that comes from congenial work. And her editor was so clever and so kind! No one ever smoked in the office now, and there were always roses. And Kitty took them home with her, so that now there was no need to wonder for whom he had bought them. Then came the inevitable hour. He met her one day with a clouded face and a letter in his hand. "It's all over," he said; "the real original old Aunt Kate is coming back. She's the dearest old thing, so kind and jolly--but--but--but-- whatever shall we do?" "I can still write stories, I suppose," said Kitty, but she realised with a gasp that congenial toil would not be quite, quite the same without congenial companionship. "Yes," said he, picking up the bunch of red roses, "but--here are your flowers--don't you know yet that I can't possibly do without you? In a few months I'm to have the editorship of a new weekly, a much better berth than this. If only you would----" "Write the correspondence?" said Kitty, brightening; "of course I will. I don't know what I should do without----" "I wish," he interrupted, "that I could think it was _me_ you couldn't do without." Her pretty eyes met his over the red roses, and he caught her hands with the flowers in them. "Is it? Oh, say you can't do without me either. Say it, say it!"