set her lips
in grim puritan silence and did that which must be done without
reproach.

Somehow she found the money for the rent from month to month and gave
Horatio his carfare and lunch money each morning. But she came to Milly
for money to buy food, and Milly gave it generously although she owed
all she earned and much more. But food came before bills. If it hadn't
been for Eleanor Kemp's luxurious luncheons, the girl would often have
gone hungry.... And through it all she never took refuge in tears.
"What's the use?" she said.

* * * * *

It was during the darkest of these days that a new turn in Milly's fate
came unexpectedly. She had been to a Sunday luncheon at the Nortons, and
was walking back along the Drive, thinking a little sadly that even her
old pals had invited her only at the last moment, "to fill in." She was
no more any sort of social "card." She was revolving this and other
dreary thoughts in her worried mind when she heard her name,--"Miss
Ridge--I say, Miss Ridge!"

She turned to meet the beaming face of old Christian Becker, the
editor-proprietor of the _Morning Star_, who was hurrying towards her as
fast as his short, fat person would permit him. As he came along he
raised his shiny silk hat above his bald head, and his broad face broke
into a larger smile than was its wont. Becker was an amusing character,
tempting to set before the reader, but as he has to do only incidentally
with Milly Ridge it cannot be. Enough to say that after forty years of
hard struggle in the land of his adoption, he had preserved the virtues
of a simple countryman and the heart of a good-natured boy. Every one in
the city knew Christian Becker; every one laughed and growled at his
newspaper,--the God of his heart.

"Thought it must be you," he gasped. "Never forget how a pretty woman
walks!" (How _does_ she walk? Milly wondered.) "How are you, Miss Ridge?
Haven't seen you for some time--not since that swell dinner at the
Bowman place, d'ye remember?"

Milly remembered very well,--the apex moment of her career hitherto.

He smiled good naturedly, and Milly smiled, too. Then Becker added in a
childlike burst of confidence:--

"Let me tell you, you did just right, my girl! Don't tie yourself up
with any man you can't run with. It don't work. It saves tears and
trouble to quit before you're hitched by the parson."

Milly flushed at the frank reference to her broken engagement, then