a trifling exchange
for these things, even of a lady; and also that some people have
a remarkably small purse, and a remarkably small portion of the
yellow "root" in that. And now, to bring the matter home, I am
one of that class. I have the most beautiful little purse in the
world, but it is only kept for show. I even find myself under
the necessity of counterfeiting--that is, filling the void with
tissue-paper in lieu of bank-notes, preparatory to a shopping
expedition. Well, now to the point. As Bel and I snuggled down
on the sofa this morning to read the _New Mirror_ (by the way,
Cousin Bel is never obliged to put tissue-paper in her purse),
it struck us that you would be a friend in need, and give good
counsel in this emergency. Bel, however, insisted on my not
telling what I wanted the money for. She even thought that I had
better intimate orphanage, extreme suffering from the bursting
of some speculative bubble, illness, etc.; but did I not know
you better? Have I read the _New Mirror_ so much (to say nothing
of the graceful things coined under a bridge, and a thousand
other pages flung from the inner heart) and not learned who has
an eye for everything pretty? Not so stupid, Cousin Bel, no,
no!...

"And to the point. Maybe you of the _New Mirror_ PAY for
acceptable articles, maybe not. _Comprenez vous?_ Oh, I do hope
that beautiful _balzarine_ like Bel's will not be gone before
another Saturday! You will not forget to answer me in the next
_Mirror_; but pray, my dear Editor, let it be done very
cautiously, for Bel would pout all day if she should know what I
have written.

"Till Saturday, your anxiously-waiting friend,

"FANNY FORRESTER."

Such a note received by an editor of this generation would promptly fall
into the waste-basket. But Willis was captivated, and answered:

"Well, we give in! On _condition_ that you are under twenty-five and
that you will wear a rose (recognizably) in your bodice the first time
you appear in Broadway with the hat and _balzarine_, we will pay the
bills. Write us thereafter a sketch of Bel and yourself as cleverly done
as this letter, and you may 'snuggle' down on the sofa and consider us
paid, and the public charmed with you."

This style of ingratiating one's self with an editor is as much a bygone
as an alli