HERE will be no sweet smells of childhood here.<br > The little girl， to a great extent， will have to be<br > deduced from her adult fantasies and ac.tions.<br > Since that little girl lived for a very long time m<br >the late-blooming womaa--indeed， may have first emerged<br >then--the loss is unfortunate but not devastating.<br > The Kilgallens--Dorothy， her parents， her sister， and two<br >of her three children--were always extraordinarily chary of<br > public disclosure about family affairs. The columnist s messy<br > and still unsolved barbiturate death in 1965 turned their vig-<br > fiance into virtual obsession. Dorothy s father， Jim Kilgallen，<br > does not discuss his daughter even with friends of long<br > standing. He is ninety years old at the time of this writing.<br > He has been married to Mac Kilgallen for sixty-six of those<br > years and to the Hearst Organization for fifty-seven. In the<br > more recent tributes to Jim， Dorothy s name has not even<br > been mentioned.<br > When I first undertook KilgaUen in 1975， I wrote to<br > members of her family requesting interviews. The first rejec-<br > tion came from her only sister， Eleanor， who is a vice-<br > president of the Music Corporation of America.<br > Eleanor Kilgallen contended in her reply that her sister<br > was treated unkindly during her life and after her death by<br > her colleagues in journalism and that she has therefore<br > "made it a policy never to discuss my sister in regard to any<br > publication." x<br >