dead?"

Lester saw this item. He did not take the paper, but some kind soul
took good care to see that a copy was marked and mailed to him. It
irritated him greatly, for he suspected at once that it was a scheme
to blackmail him. But he did not know exactly what to do about it. He
preferred, of course, that such comments should cease, but he also
thought that if he made any effort to have them stopped he might make
matters worse. So he did nothing. Naturally, the paragraph in the
Budget attracted the attention of other newspapers. It sounded
like a good story, and one Sunday editor, more enterprising than the
others, conceived the notion of having this romance written up. A
full-page Sunday story with a scare-head such as "Sacrifices Millions
for His Servant Girl Love," pictures of Lester, Jennie, the house at
Hyde Park, the Kane manufactory at Cincinnati, the warehouse on
Michigan Avenue--certainly, such a display would make a
sensation. The Kane Company was not an advertiser in any daily or
Sunday paper. The newspaper owed him nothing. If Lester had been
forewarned he might have put a stop to the whole business by putting
an advertisement in the paper or appealing to the publisher. He did
not know, however, and so was without power to prevent the
publication. The editor made a thorough job of the business. Local
newspaper men in Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus were instructed
to report by wire whether anything of Jennie's history was known in
their city. The Bracebridge family in Cleveland was asked whether
Jennie had ever worked there. A garbled history of the Gerhardts was
obtained from Columbus. Jennie's residence on the North Side, for
several years prior to her supposed marriage, was discovered and so
the whole story was nicely pieced together. It was not the idea of the
newspaper editor to be cruel or critical, but rather complimentary.
All the bitter things, such as the probable illegitimacy of Vesta, the
suspected immorality of Lester and Jennie in residing together as man
and wife, the real grounds of the well-known objections of his family
to the match, were ignored. The idea was to frame up a Romeo and
Juliet story in which Lester should appear as an ardent,
self-sacrificing lover, and Jennie as a poor and lovely working-girl,
lifted to great financial and social heights by the devotion of her
millionaire lover. An exceptional newspaper artist was engaged to make
scenes depicting the various steps of