CHAPTER VI.
LITTLE BROWN PARTRIDGES.
May 20.
I wonder if I couldn't earn money. For the last week—nothing but trouble. No check from Father. Hugh Bellmer I have not seen. Strathay has really gone, spirited away by that superior cousin.
And Mrs. Whitney has deserted me—oh, if it were not for money troubles, I wouldn't mind that, cruel as was the manner of it!
Of course the newspapers soon learned that Strathay had left town. Trust them for that; and to make sensational use of it! The first I knew of it, indeed, was when one day Cadge came bursting into the room.
"Isn't it a shame?" she began in her piercing voice; as ever at fever heat of unrest, she waved at me a folded newspaper.
"Emphatically; but what is it?"
"That fierce tale of the Echo; haven't seen it? We couldn't print a line. Big Tom says the chief has put his foot down; won't have stories about women in private life, you know—without their consent. But why didn't you—why can't you give us a whack at it?"