day, with plain net
curtains and old-fashioned woven rugs. But all these were in the
guest-rooms now, and in her own bedroom Mrs. White had a complete set
of Circassian walnut, heavily carved, and ornamented with cunningly
inset panels of rattan. On the beds were covers of Oriental cottons,
and the window-curtains showed the same elementary designs in pinks and
blues.

"She dresses very prettily, I thought," observed Mr. White, apropos of
his wife's last remark.

"Dresses!" echoed his wife. "She dresses as your mother might!"

"Very pretty, very pretty!" said the man absently, over his book.

There was a silence. Then:

"That just shows how much men notice," Mrs. White confided to her
ivory-backed brush. "I believe they LIKE women to look like frumps!"

CHAPTER VII

These were busy days in the once quiet and sleepy office of the Santa
Paloma Morning Mail. A wave of energy and vigor swept over the place,
affecting everybody from the fat, spoiled office cat, who found himself
pushed out of chairs, and bounced off of folded coats with small
courtesy, to the new editor-manager and the lady whose timely
investment had brought this pleasant change about. Old Kelly, the
proof-reader, night clerk, Associated Press manager, and assistant
editor, shouted and swore with a vim unknown of late years; Miss
Watson, who "covered" social events, clubs, public dinners, "dramatic,"
and "hotels," cleaned out her desk, and took her fancy-work home, and
"Fergy," a freckled youth who delighted in calling himself a "cub,"
although he did little more than run errands and carry copy to the
press-room, might even be seen batting madly at an unused typewriter
when actual duties failed, so inspiring was the new atmosphere.

Mrs. Burgoyne had a desk and a corner of her own, where her trim figure
might be seen daily for an hour or two, from ten o'clock until the
small girls came in to pick her up on their way home from school for
luncheon. Barry found her brimming with ideas. She instituted the
"Women's Page," the old familiar page of answered questions, and
formulas for ginger-bread, and brief romances, and scraps of poetry,
and she offered through its columns a weekly cash prize for
contributions on household topics. An exquisite doll appeared in the
window of the Mail office, a doll with a flower-wreathed hat, and a
ruffled dress, and a little parasol to match the dress, and loitering
little girls, drawn from all over the village