When, on this occasion, he looked Lark up and down with his usual rotund complacency, Carol only gritted her teeth and reminded her heaving soul that he was an editor.
"What are you going to do this summer, Lark?" he asked, without preamble.
"Why,—just nothing, I suppose. As usual."
"Well," he said, frowning plumply, "we're running short of men. I've heard you're interested in our line, and I thought maybe you could help us out during vacation. How about it? The work'll be easy and it'll be fine experience for you. We'll pay you five dollars a week. This is a little town, and we're called a little publication, but our work and our aim and methods are identical with those of the big city papers." He swelled visibly, almost alarmingly. "How about it? You're the one with the literary longings, aren't you?"
Lark was utterly speechless. If the National Bank had opened its coffers to the always hard-pressed twins, she could not have been more completely confounded. Carol was in a condition nearly as serious, but grasping the gravity of the situation, she rushed into the breach headlong.
"Yes,—yes," she gasped. "She's literary. Oh, she's very literary."
Mr. Raider smiled. "Well, would you like to try your hand out with me?"
Again Carol sprang to her sister's relief.
"Yes, indeed, she would," she cried. "Yes, indeed." And then, determined to impress upon him that the Daily News was the one to profit chiefly from the innovation, she added, "And it's a lucky day for the Daily News, too, I tell you. There aren't many Larks in Mount Mark, in a literary way, I mean, and—the Daily News needs some—that is, I think—new blood,—anyhow, Lark will be just fine."
"All right. Come in, Monday morning at eight, Lark, and I'll set you to work. It won't be anything very important. You can write up the church news, and parties, and goings away, and things like that. It'll be good training. You can study our papers between now and then, to catch our style."