“You won’t be able to hold Hetty in Millville long.  Her talent enables her to draw big salaries in New York and it isn’t likely she will consent to bury herself in this little town.”

“I’m not so sure,” said Patsy.  “If we can hold Thursday Smith we can hold Hetty, you know.”

“We won’t need to hold either of them for long,” observed Beth; “for in another three weeks or so we must leave here and return to the city, when of course the Millville Daily Tribune must suspend publication.”

“I’ve been thinking of that,” said Uncle John.

“So have I,” declared Patsy.  “For a long time I was puzzled what to do, for I hated dreadfully to kill our dear Tribune after we’ve made it such a nice paper.  Yet I knew very well we couldn’t stay here all winter and run it.  But last night I had an inspiration.  Thursday will marry Hetty, I suppose, and they can both stay here and run the Tribune.  They are doing most of the work now.  If Uncle John agrees, we will sell out to them on ‘easy terms.’”

“Good gracious, Patsy!” chuckled the major, “wherever can the poor things borrow money to keep going?  Do you want to load onto an innocent bride an’ groom the necessity of meeting a deficit of a couple of hundred dollars every week?”

Patsy’s face fell.

“They have no money, I know,” she said, “except what they earn.”

“And their wages’ll be cut off when they begin hiring themselves,” added the major.  “No; you can’t decently thrust such an incubus on Hetty and Thursday—­or on anyone else.  You’ve been willing to pay the piper for the sake of the dance, but no one else would do it.”

“Quite true,” agreed Arthur.  “The days of the Millville Tribune are numbered.”

“Let us not settle that question just yet,” proposed Mr. Merrick, who had been deep in thought.  “I’ll consider Patsy’s proposition for awhile and then talk with Thursday.  The paper belongs to the girls, but the outfit is mine, and I suppose I may do what I please with it when my nieces retire from journalism.”

Even the major could not demur at this statement and so the conversation dropped.  During the next few days Uncle John visited the printing office several times and looked over the complete little plant with speculative eyes.  Then one day he made a trip to Malvern, thirty miles up the railway line from the Junction, where a successful weekly paper had long been published.  He interviewed the editor, examined the outfit critically, and after asking numerous questions returned to Millville in excellent spirits.

Then he invited Thursday Smith and Hetty to dine at the farm on Saturday evening, which was the one evening in the week they were free, there being no Sunday morning paper.  Thursday had bought a new suit of clothes since he came to the Tribune, and Hetty, after much urging, finally prevailed upon him to accept the invitation.  When the young man appeared at the farm he wore his new suit with an air of perfect ease that disguised its cheapness, and it was noticed that he seemed quite at home in the handsome living-room, where the party assembled after dinner.