loyment to avoid running in debt and she was assured by Mrs. Earle
that she would be very foolish to reject such an offer. Reflection
caused her to think more highly of the work itself. It would afford her
a chance to explain to the women of Benham, and indirectly to the
country at large, that taste in dress was not necessarily inconsistent
with virtue and serious intentions--a truth of which she herself had
become possessed since her marriage and which it seemed to her might be
utilized delightfully in her department. She would endeavor to treat
dress from the standpoint of ethical responsibility to society, and to
show that both extravagance and dowdy homeliness were to be avoided.
Clothes in themselves had grown to be a satisfaction to her, and any
association of vanity would be eliminated by the introduction of a
serious artistic purpose into a weekly commentary concerning them.
Accordingly she accepted the position and entered upon its duties with
grave zeal.

For each of these contributions Selma was to receive eight dollars--four
hundred a year, which she hoped to expand to a thousand by creative
literary production--preferably essays and poetry. She hired a room in
the same neighborhood as Mrs. Earle, in the boarding-house district
appurtenant to Central Avenue--that is to say, on the ragged edge of
Benham's social artery, and set up her new household gods. The interest
of preparing the first paper absorbed her to the exclusion of everything
else. She visited all the dress-making and dry-goods establishments in
town, examined, at a hint from Mrs. Earle, the fashion departments of
the New York papers, and then, pen in hand, gave herself up to her
subject. The result seemed to her a happy blending of timely philosophy
and suggestions as to toilette, and she took it in person to the editor.
He saw fit to read it on the spot. His brow wrinkled at first and he
looked dubious. He re-read it and said with some gusto, "It's a novelty,
but I guess they'll like it. Our women readers have been used to fashion
notes which are crisp and to the point, and the big houses expect to
have attention called to the goods they wish to sell. If you'll run over
this again and set your cold facts in little paragraphs by themselves
every now and then, I shouldn't wonder if the rest were a sort of
lecture course which will catch them. It's a good idea. Next time you
could work in a pathetic story--some references to a dead
baby--verses--a