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low that milked the cows for me last
summer? He was an author. Went
broke, and I kept him for his work
wasn't worth his board alone, much
less his pay I kept him all summer.
He told me a thing or two. There isn't
money in it, and it's all a swindle any
way. Suppose you do sell some mag-
'azine a story? That doesn't bring in
the bread and butter regularly. Of
course! you wouldn't need that, but
don't you see, dear, one has to be
practical? Now you can do all the
writing you want as my wife, and I
mean to give you a pretty easy time
only you mustn't get unpractical,
Clarice." He lowered his voice. "You
know, dear, I always think a wom
an's task is to keep her house neat
and look after her babies."
Clarice was eminently practical,
only not in theN same way as Jim.
That night she faced the problem
with her own frankness. If she could
never share those hopes with Jim
and she knew that she could not
she resolved that they should never
come between them. She would
abandon them. She would take upl
the part of wife and mother. She
would live for Jim. She would be
everything to him.
And, once the decision was made,
it was astonishing how quickly she
forgot all about her novel.
She had signed it with a pen name.
She had given no address. To her it
seemed a terrible undertaking, some
thing that was liable to call down on
her the scathing ridicule -of the pub
lishers, if they knew who she was.
No doubt, she thought, the novel
, would find its way quietly into the
waste-basket, and that would -be the
, end of.it
A It seemed a foolish little dream of
the past six months later, when she
( was established as Jim's wife in his
home. Jim was everything to her.
. He even tried she could see that to
interest himself in literature. It was
j so dear of him! And his delight when
j.she.whippered to him the momentous
Secret made her cry for happiness.1
There would soon be three of them
a little world of three f How weak
and vain the old dreams had been! '
He brought her home some books.
"There!" he said, laying them down.
"Here's 'Ebenezer's Folly.' They say
it's the talk of the country nowadays.
We'll read it together. And here's
'When We Were Young.' Everybody's
raving oyer that, the book-fellow told
me in the shop. Why, dear, are you
feeling sick?"
"No, its nothing, Jim," answered
Clarice. There, before her, lay her
own book. She opened it It was
hers, word ior word and she had "writ
ten it Giddily she flew upstairs and
thrust it deep into a drawer.
That 'evening she turned almost
automatically to an inside page of the
city weekly. She had never read the
"Authors' Gossip" before. And there,
on the top of the page, in huge head
lines, was the question:
"Who Is the Author of 'When We
Were Young'?"
"The Publishers' Statement"
f Clarice devoured the long article
that followed. The publishers an
nounced that they had received the
.manuscript, written in longhand, and
apparently the work of an amateur,
six months before. A cursory survey
had revealed a novel of an uncommon
type. It had been read with an en
thusiasm that even the most hard
ened reader in the firm was not propf
against. Its setting of country life,
its truth, its fidelity, its Bcorn, of the
picturesque had demanded instant
publication. And the reading public
had endorsed it by purchasing ninety
thousand copies of it But who was
the author? The publishers' state
ment that they did'not know was be
lieved to be genuine. It was no ad
vertising scheme. Somewhere in
America a genius lay hidden, watch
ing with amusement the frantic
efforts of the public to discover her
identity for of course it was a
woman!
Clarice let the paper falL She had
not the dimmest idea of the value of
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