They did not see each other as often as formerly, for the newspaper woman found all her time occupied by her new work. To-day being Monday, she had managed to get off for the afternoon, as it was in the Sunday edition that the Woman’s Page attained its most imposing proportions. Monday was a day off. But Mrs. Willers did not always avail herself of it. She was having the first real chance of her life and was working harder than she had ever done before. Her bank account was mounting weekly. On the occasions when she had time to consult the little book she saw through the line of figures Edna going to a fine school in New York, and then, perhaps, a still finer one abroad, and back of that again--dimly, as became a blissful vision--Edna grown a woman, accomplished, graceful, beautiful, a glorified figure in a haze of wealth and success. She had no war-paint on to-day, but was in her working clothes, dark and serviceable, showing lapses between skirt and waist-band, and tag ends of tape appearing in unexpected places. She had dressed in such a hurry that morning that only three buttons of each boot were fastened, though the evening before Edna had seen to it that they were all on. She had come up the hill on what she would have called “a dead run,” and was still fetching her breath with gasps. Sitting opposite Mariposa, in the bright light of the window, she let her eyes dwell fondly on the girl’s face. “Well, young woman, do you know I’ve come up here on the full jump to lecture you?” “Lecture me?” said Mariposa, laughing and bending forward to give Mrs. Willers’ hand a friendly squeeze. “What have I been doing now?” “That’s just what I’ve come to find out. Left a desk full of work, and Miss Peebles hopping round like a chicken with its head off, to find out what you’ve been doing. I’d have come up before only I couldn’t get away. Mariposa, my dear, I’ve had a letter from Mrs. Shackleton.” Mariposa’s color deepened. A line appeared between her eyebrows, and she looked out of the window. “Well,” she said; “and did she say anything about me?” “That’s what she did--a lot. A lot that sorter stumped me. And I’ve come up here to-day to find out what’s the matter with you. What is it that’s making you act like several different kinds of fool all at once?” “What do you mean?” said Mariposa weakly, trying to gain time. “What did she tell you?” “My dear, you know as well as I do what she told me. And I can’t make head or tail of it. What’s come over you?” “I don’t know,” said the girl in a low voice. “I suppose I’ve changed.” “Stuff!” observed Mrs. Willers briskly. “Don’t try to tell lies; you don’t know how. One’s got to have some natural capacity for it. You’ve had an offer that makes it possible for you to go to Europe, educate your voice, study French and German, and become a prima donna. Everything’s to be paid--no limit set on time or money. Now, what in heaven’s name made you refuse that?”