“Well, then,” he said, “I'll give you free rein. Just get your copy in by Wednesday night--we go to press Thursdays--and I promise to read every word of it myself.” “Oh,” she said. There were a thousand questions she'd have liked to ask, but Ed Martin, smiling a queer kind of smile, had turned to his papers as if anxious to get at them. No; she mustn't begin by bothering him with questions. He was a busy man, and he'd put this new, big responsibility on HER--“a free rein,” he had said. And she must live up to that trust; she must find her own way--study up the problem of society editing, which, even if not her ideal, yet was a wedge to who-knew-what? And meanwhile perhaps she could set a new standard for society columns--brilliant and clever... Missy left the Beacon office, suffused with emotions no pen, not even her own, could ever have described. Ed Martin, safely alone, allowed himself the luxury of an extensive grin. Then, even while he smiled, his eyes sobered. “Poor young one.” He sighed and shook his head, then took up the editorial he was writing on the delinquencies of the local waterworks administration. Meanwhile Missy, moving slowly back up Main Street, was walking on something much softer and springier than the board sidewalk under her feet. She didn't notice even the cracks, now. The acquaintances who passed her, and the people sitting contentedly out on their shady porches, seemed in a different world from the one she was traversing. She had never known this kind of happiness before--exploring a dream country which promised to become real. Now and then a tiny cloud shadowed the radiance of her emotions: just how would she begin?--what should she write about and how?--but swiftly her thoughts flitted back to that soft, warm, undefined deliciousness... Society Editor!--she, Melissa Merriam! Her words would be immortalized in print! and she would soar up and up... Some day, in the big magazines... Everybody would read her name there--all Cherryvale--and, perhaps, Ridgeley Holman Dobson would chance a brilliant, authoritative article on some deep, vital subject and wish to meet the author. She might even have to go to New York to live--New York! And associate with the interesting, delightful people there. Maybe he lived in New York, or, anyway, visited there, associating with celebrities. She wished her skirts were long enough to hold up gracefully like Polly Currier walking over there across the street; she wished she had long, dangling ear-rings; she wished... Dreamy-eyed, the Society Editor of the Cherryvale Beacon turned in at the Merriam gate to announce her estate to an amazed family circle. Aunt Nettie, of course, ejaculated, “goodness gracious!” and laughed. But mother was altogether sweet and satisfying. She looked a little startled at first, but she came over and smoothed her daughter's hair while she listened, and, for some reason, was unusually tender all the afternoon.