“You will find it far more satisfactory, I’m sure,” replied Patsy encouragingly.  “What most surprises me is that with your talent and education you ever got into such bad ways.”

“Environment,” said Hetty.  “That’s what did it.  When I first went to New York I was very young.  A newspaper man took me out to dinner and asked me to have a cocktail.  I looked around the tables and saw other girls drinking cocktails, so I took one.  That was where I turned into the rocky road.  People get careless around the newspaper offices.  They work under a constant nervous strain and find that drink steadies them—­for a time.  By and by they disappear; others take their places, and they are never heard of again except in the police courts.  I knew a girl, society editor of a big paper, who drew her five thousand a year, at one time.  She got the cocktail habit and a week or so ago I paid her fine for getting pinched while intoxicated.  She was in rags and hadn’t a red cent.  That set me thinking, and when Tommy fired me from his paper and said the best he could do was to get me a job in the country, it seemed as if my chance to turn over a new leaf had arrived.  I’ve turned it,” she added, with a pathetic sigh; “but whether it’ll stay turned, or not, is a question for the puzzle page.”

“Haven’t you a family to look after you—­or for you to look after?” asked Beth.

“No.  Brother and I were left orphans in a Connecticut town, and he went out West, to Chicago, and promised to send for me.  Must have forgot that promise, I guess, for I’ve never heard of Dan since.  I could draw pictures, so I went to New York and found a job.  Guess that’s my biography, and it isn’t as interesting as one of Hearst’s editorials, either.”

Hetty seemed pleased and grateful to note the frank friendliness of her girlish employers, in whom she recognized the admirable qualities she had personally sacrificed for a life of dissipation.  In the privacy of her room at the hotel she had read the first copy of the Millville Tribune and shrieked with laughter at the ingenuous editorials and schoolgirl essays.  Then she grew sober and thoughtful, envying in her heart the sweetness and simplicity so apparent in every line.  Here were girls who possessed something infinitely higher than journalistic acumen; they were true women, with genuine womanly qualities and natures that betrayed their worth at a glance, as do ingots of refined gold.  What would not this waif from the grim underworld of New York have given for such clear eyes, pure mind and unsullied heart?  “I don’t know as I can ever swim in their pond,” Hetty reflected, with honest regret, “but there’s a chance I can look folks square in the eye again—­and that wouldn’t be so bad.”

Monday morning, when Patsy, Louise and Beth drove to their office, Miss Briggs said nonchalantly: 

“McGaffey’s gone.”

“Gone!  Gone where?” asked Patsy.

“Back to New York.  Caught a freight from the Junction Saturday night.”