Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the city room.djvu/239

 reservations of those who knew more about the subject than the speaker did. Wheeler, one of her friends, came to her a little later.

"I could have told you, little girl," he said very gently, "what a serious blunder you were making. If I had been here I would most certainly have warned you that night. But I knew nothing about it until I came yesterday morning and found the office teeming with the story. It was a horrible mistake for you to make. It's an assignment no woman should have taken, and no good woman would have dreamed of attempting it—if she had realized what she was doing," he added hastily, as the girl paled under the words. "I'm afraid it will take you months to live it down."

Absurd as the words sounded, Miss Van Dyke found them very true. As the weeks passed she tried to slip back into her quiet little niche on the paper, but they would not have it so. Even the managing editor unconsciously added his share to her weight of woe. He had highly approved her Tenderloin story, and now, from day to day, he gave her others along similar lines.