“Then I suppose you don’t want to reply to it,” said the editor.

Her laughter instantly ceased.  “Don’t I?” she said, wiping her face into its previous complacent determination.  “Well, young man, I reckon that’s just what I want to do!  Now, wait a moment; let’s see what he said,” she went on, taking up and reperusing the “Personal” paragraph.  “Well, then,” she went on, after a moment’s silent composition with moving lips, “you just put these lines in.”

The editor took up his pencil.

“To Mr. J. D. Dimmidge.—­Hope you’re still on R. B.’s tracks.  Keep there!—­E.  J. D.”

The editor wrote down the line, and then, remembering Mr. Dimmidge’s voluntary explanation of his “Personal,” waited with some confidence for a like frankness from Mrs. Dimmidge.  But he was mistaken.

“You think that he—­R.  B.—­or Mr. Dimmidge—­will understand this?” he at last asked tentatively.  “Is it enough?”

“Quite enough,” said Mrs. Dimmidge emphatically.  She took a roll of greenbacks from her pocket, selected a hundred-dollar bill and then a five, and laid them before the editor.  “Young man,” she said, with a certain demure gravity, “you’ve done me a heap o’ good.  I never spent money with more satisfaction than this.  I never thought much o’ the ‘power o’ the Press,’ as you call it, afore.  But this has been a right comfortable visit, and I’m glad I ketched you alone.  But you understand one thing:  this yer visit, and who I am, is betwixt you and me only.”

“Of course I must say that the advertisement was authorized,” returned the editor.  “I’m only the temporary editor.  The proprietor is away.”

“So much the better,” said the lady complacently.  “You just say you found it on your desk with the money; but don’t you give me away.”

“I can promise you that the secret of your personal visit is safe with me,” said the young man, with a bow, as Mrs. Dimmidge rose.  “Let me see you to your horse,” he added.  “It’s quite dark in the woods.”

“I can see well enough alone, and it’s just as well you shouldn’t know how I kem or how I went away.  Enough for you to know that I’ll be miles away before that paper comes out.  So stay where you are.”

She pressed his hand frankly and firmly, gathered up her riding-skirt, slipped backwards to the door, and the next moment rustled away into the darkness.

Early the next morning the editor handed Mrs. Dimmidge’s advertisement, and the woodcut he had selected, to his foreman.  He was purposely brief in his directions, so as to avoid inquiry, and retired to his sanctum.  In the space of a few moments the foreman entered with a slight embarrassment of manner.

“You’ll excuse my speaking to you, sir,” he said, with a singular mixture of humility and cunning.  “It’s no business of mine, I know; but I thought I ought to tell you that this yer kind o’ thing won’t pay any more,—­it’s about played out!”