They fell into a despondent reverie, with their chins in their bosoms. There came a cheerful voice from the next room, but to them it brought no cheer; in their ears it sounded weak from the need of food and faint with piteous reproach. “Father, aren't you coming to have luncheon with me?” “Mr. Parker, what are we to do?” whispered the old man, hoarsely. “Is it too far to take her to Briscoes'?” “In the rain?” “Take her with you to Tibbs's.” “Their noon meal is long since over; and their larder is not--is not--extensive.” “Father!” called the girl. She was stirring; they could hear her moving about the room. “You've got to go in and tell her,” said the foreman, desperately, and together they stumbled into the room. A small table at one end of it was laid with a snowy cloth and there was a fragrance of tea, and, amidst various dainties, one caught a glimpse of cold chicken and lettuce leaves. Fisbee stopped, dumfounded, but the foreman, after stammeringly declining an invitation to partake, alleging that his own meal awaited, sped down to the printing-room, and seized upon Bud Tipworthy with a heavy hand. “Where did all that come from, up there?” “Leave go me! _What_ 'all that'?” “All that tea and chicken and salad and wafers--all kinds of things; sardines, for all I know!” “They come in Briscoes' buckboard while you was gone. Briscoes sent 'em in a basket; I took 'em up and she set the basket under the table. You'd seen it if you'd 'a' looked. _Quit_ that!” And it was unjust to cuff the perfectly innocent and mystified Bud, and worse not to tell him what the punishment was for. Before the day was over, system had been introduced, and the “Herald” was running on it: and all that warm, rainy afternoon, the editor and Fisbee worked in the editorial rooms, Parker and Bud and Mr. Schofield (after his return with the items and a courteous message from Ephraim Watts) bent over the forms downstairs, and Uncle Xenophon was cleaning the store-room and scrubbing the floor. An extraordinary number of errands took the various members of the printing force up to see the editor-in-chief, literally to see the editor-in-chief; it was hard to believe that the presence had not flown--hard to keep believing, without the repeated testimony of sight, that the dingy room upstairs was actually the setting for their jewel; and a jewel they swore she was. The printers came down chuckling and gurgling after each interview; it was partly the thought that she belonged to the “Herald,” _their_ paper. Once Ross, as he cut down one of the temporarily distended advertisements, looked up and caught the foreman giggling to himself. “What in the name of common-sense you laughin' at, Cale?” he asked. “What are _you_ laughing at?” rejoined the other. “I dunno!”