The editor blushed. “Why, who would, dear, if not a woman, or a speculator, and I'm not a speculator; and neither are you, and that's the reason you didn't think of them. So, Mr. Parker, as there is so much pressure, and if you don't mind continuing to act as reporter as well as compositor until after to-morrow, and if it isn't too wet--you must take an umbrella--would it be too much bother if you went around to all the shops--_stores_, I mean--to all the grocers', and the butchers', and that leather place we passed, the tannery?--and if there's one of those places where they bring cows, would it be too much to ask you to stop there?--and at the flour-mill, if it isn't too far?--and at the dry-goods store? And you must take a blank-book and sharpened pencil, And will you price everything, please, and jot down how much things are?” Orders received, the impetuous Parker was departing on the instant, when she stopped him with a little cry: “But you haven't any umbrella!” And she forced her own, a slender wand, upon him; it bore a cunningly wrought handle and its fabric was of glistening silk. The foreman, unable to decline it, thanked her awkwardly, and, as she turned to speak to Fisbee, bolted out of the door and ran down the steps without unfolding the umbrella; and as he made for Mr. Martin's emporium, he buttoned it securely under his long “Prince Albert,” determined that not a drop of water should touch and ruin so delicate a thing. Thus he carried it, triumphantly dry, through the course of his reportings of that day. When he had gone the editor laid her hand on Fisbee's arm. “Dear,” she said, “do you think you would take cold if you went over to the hotel and made a note of all the arrivals for the last week--and the departures, too? I noticed that Mr. Harkless always filled two or three--sticks, isn't it?--with them and things about them, and somehow it 'read' very nicely. You must ask the landlord all about them; and, if there aren't any, we can take up the same amount of space lamenting the dull times, just as he used to. You see I've read the 'Herald' faithfully; isn't it a good thing I always subscribed for it?” She patted Fisbee's cheek, and laughed gaily into his mild, vague old eyes.