Patience flushed as she bent her head to the young woman, who regarded her with conspicuous amazement, and whose nostrils quivered a little, as if she scented a “story.” She was a pretty girl with a dark rather worn face, a frank eye, and a nervous manner. “Patita, sit down there just for a moment while I look at you. Then we will go into the other room. I could not wait to see you. _Dios de mi alma_, but you have changed, Patita _mia_. Who would ever have thought that you would be such a beauty and such a swell. Gray cloth and chinchilla! Just think, Miss Merrien, we used to wear sunbonnets and copper-toed boots, and drove an old blind horse that would not go off a walk.” “May I put that down?” asked the girl, eagerly. “Oh, please don’t,” exclaimed Patience. Miss Merrien’s face fell. Then she smiled, and said good-naturedly, “All right, I won’t.” “And now Patita is a swell,” pursued Rosita, as if no interruption had occurred, “and I am a famous _prima donna_. Such is life. Patita, do you know that I have two hundred thousand dollars invested?” “Really?” “_Si, señorita!_ Oh, my price has gone up, Patita _mia_,” and she laughed her low delicious laugh. Miss Merrien smiled. “A man shot himself for that laugh the other day—I suppose you read about it,” she said. “No, I did not. I have read the newspapers irregularly of late—the ‘stories,’ at least.” “It is true,” said Rosita, complacently. “Oh, Patita, life is so lovely. To think that we both had such great destinies! _Pobre_ Manuela, and Panchita, and all the rest! _Bueno_, go into the bedroom, both of you, and I will be there in ten minutes.” Patience and Miss Merrien seated themselves in the white bower of velvet and lace. “Please do not put me into your story,” said Patience, hastily. “It would not do—you see my husband would not like it—but we are old friends, and I wanted to see her.” Miss Merrien nodded intelligently. With the suspicion of her craft she leaped to the conclusion that the fashionable young woman came to her disreputable friend for an occasional lark. “Oh, I promise you. If you hadn’t asked me I should though. It would make a fine story.” “Tell me,” said Patience abruptly, “do you like being a newspaper woman? Is it very hard work?” “Yes, it’s hard work,” Miss Merrien answered in some surprise; “but then it is the most fascinating, I do believe, in the whole world. I have a family and a home out West, and I could go back and be comfortable if I wanted to; but I wouldn’t give up this life, with all its grind and uncertainty, for that dead and alive existence. I only go out there once a year to rest. I came on here for an experiment, to see a little of the world. I had a dreadful time catching on; once I thought I’d starve, for I was bound I wouldn’t write home for money; but I hung on and got there. And I’m here to stay.” “Oh, is it really so pleasant? Sometimes I wish I were a newspaper woman.” “You? You? I never saw anybody that looked less like one.”