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Newspaper Page Text
wmmmmmmmmmmm to Miss Yelda Tresham, May brook. Then he went to his rather cheerless room where he was making a struggle of life try ing to write for the newspapers. Maybrook was the little coun try town from which Earle had come six months previous. Velda Tresham was the one young lady in that village for whom he en tertained a warmer sentiment than she had ever divined. Tol man, making a visit to the city, had come across Earle. Only casually had Earle ventured to ask about Yelda. He had heard incidentally that Tolman had been paying some attentions to the young lady, and did not seek a gratuitous heartache by explor ing the intimacy. Earle knew that the erudite Professor Tresham, the father of Velda, was a great collector of uniquf oddities. He had sent the prayer mill to Velda hoping she might write to him. At least it would show that he-had not for gotten her. The next day Earle was sorry that he had sent the little gift. He happened to meet Tolman. The latter dropped into a jewelry store and produced an exquisite little ring. "I wish you would engrave this for me," he said to the jeweler, and carelessly scribbled on a card: "Ward to Velda." Earle chanced to glance at the inscription ordered. He said nothing about it, but his heart sank like lead. To him there was only one "Yelda" in the world, and he parted with Tolman with the impression that what he had just seen was an engagement ring, and Miss Velda Tresham its prospective recipient. The conviction killed a good deal of the ambition of the young writer. He changed his room for a cheaper one. Things did not m go very wen witn mm. rie aia not seem to break in with any regular publisher. He struck the erratic routine of a penny-a-liner. Then, cheerless and disappointed, he broke down. A fit of sickness followed. He was two months in the hospital, and came out of it to face the world, a pensioner on the bounty of a fine-souled boher mian, almost as poor as himself, but glorying in dividing the last cent witn a fellow journalist. "Down and out," was the way that Earle put it to himself. If he had only received a word from Velda! She was probably mar ried by this time, he reflected. "Tell you, Barton," his friend and almoner said to him, "you're too good for this market. If you could get into the magazine cir cle now once a foothold, and you're a made man." But Earle shook his head mournfully. He said with a sad smile: "I'd starve before my first story was paid for. No, I'll pound m aiong on tne occasional special article line. I can at least get a half living from that." And then suddenly, by a rare chance, there awoke one day in the experience of this lonely city waif the most extravagant soul of hope. Magically, poverty was