Page:E Nesbit - Man and Maid (1906).djvu/185

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And girls write to you—and they think it’s a woman—and they tell you about their troubles. It’s horrible! It’s underhand—it’s abominable! I hate you for it. Every one ought to know. I shall write to the papers.”

“Please, please,” said the editor hurriedly and humbly—“it’s not my fault. It is a lady who does it generally, but she had to go away—and I couldn’t get any one else to do it. And I didn’t see—till after you’d been the other day—that it wasn’t fair. And I was going to ask if you would do it—the correspondence, I mean—just for this week. I wish you would!”

“Could I?” she said doubtfully.

“Of course you could! And if you’d bring the copy on Monday—about two columns, you know—we could go through it together and——

“Well, I’ll try,” said Kitty abruptly, reaching out for the sheaf of letters which he was gathering together.

And now who was happier than Kitty, seated behind her locked bedroom door advising “Dieu-donnée” and “Shy Fairy” and “Contadina” out of the unfathomable depths of her girlish inexperience. Her advice looked wonderfully practical, though,