refuge to Miss Esme Elliot.

"I didn't mean to run over her," she wailed. "You know I didn't, Esme.
She ran out just like a m-m-mouse, and I felt the car hit her, and then
she was all crumpled up in the gutter. Oh, I was so frightened! I wanted
to go back, but I was afraid, and Phil began to cry and say we'd killed
her, and I lost my head and put on speed. I didn't mean to, Esme!"

"Of course you didn't, dear. Who says you did?"

"The newspaper is going to say so. That awful reporter! He caught me at
the station and asked me a lot of questions. I just shook my head and
wouldn't say a word," lied the frightened girl. "But they're going to
print an awful interview with me, father says. He's furious at me."

"In what paper, Kathie?"

"The 'Clarion.' Father says the other papers won't publish anything
about it, but he can't stop the 'Clarion.'"

"I can," said Miss Esme Elliot confidently.

The heiress to the Pierce millions lifted her woe-begone face. "You?"
she cried incredulously. "How?"

"I've got a pull," said Esme, dimpling.

A light broke in upon her suppliant. "Of course! Hal Surtaine! But
father has been to see him and he won't promise a thing. I don't see
what he's got against me."

"Don't worry, dear. Perhaps your father doesn't understand how to go
about it."

"No," said the other thoughtfully. "Father would try to bully and
threaten. He tried to bully me!" Miss Pierce stamped a well-shod foot in
memory of her manifold wrongs. Then feminine curiosity interposed a
check. "Esme! Are you engaged to Hal Surtaine?"

"No, indeed!" The girl's laughter rang silvery and true.

"Are you going to be?"

"I'm not going to be engaged to anybody. Not for a long time, anyway.
Life is too good as it is."

"Is he in love with you?" persisted Kathleen.

Esme lifted up a very clear and sweet mezzo-soprano in a mocking lilt of
song:--

"How should my heart know
What love may be?"

The visitor regarded her admiringly. "Of course he is. What man wouldn't
be! And you've seen a lot of him lately, haven't you?"

"I'm helping him run his paper--with good advice."

"Oh-h-h!" Miss Pierce's soft mouth and big eyes formed three circles.
"And you're going to advise him--"

"I'm going to advise him ver-ree earnestly not to say a word about you
in the paper, if you'll promise never, never to do it again."

The other clasped her in a bear-hug. "You duck! I'll just crawl through
the streets after this. You watch me