sten to me--if
I find a nice woman to go with you----"

"Oh!" she interrupted mockingly, "the famous Miss Jessop! Now I _know_
you think I'm pretty bad! You forget, doctor, that I've interviewed
Miss Jessop--or tried to."

"That's better," he retorted grimly. "You hadn't much of a success,
had you, missy? And would you like to know what the famous Miss Jessop
said about you?"

"Me?"

"Yes, you. There are two sides to every interview, you know. She
said, 'If you don't see Miss Molly Dickett in your office before a
year, doctor, I miss my guess. She's a neurasthenic for you, all
right.' So what do you think of that, eh?"

"I think she was impertinent," said Molly, weakly, "and you can tell
her so."

"Bosh. Now go and lie down," he commanded shortly, and the interview
closed.

A vacation seemed a simple remedy, and she started out, bent on one,
with the kindest orders to make it long, accompanied by large credit;
but the promised renewal of vitality did not come, and the taste seemed
gone from everything. The quaint and tiny little fishing hamlet she
had fixed upon as a good place for gathering "material" by the way,
proved all and more than she had been led to hope for, and when the
greatest north-easter that had blown for fifty years bruised and tore
the rugged little coast, she "wrote it up" as a matter of course--as a
bird-dog points or a carrier pigeon wheels for home. And then Molly
Dickett received what was literally her first setback in ten years: the
City Editor sent her copy back to her!

"You're too tired, my dear girl," he wrote. "Why not wait a bit? Or
pad this out and point it up a little in the middle and send it to one
of the magazines. Peterson covered it for us, anyway, at
Kennebunkport. The cubs send you an officeful of affection, and we are
all yours truly."

But the "cubs" never hung over her desk again, for Molly never returned
to it.

"You see," as she explained to them gently, "I lost my nerve--that's
all. If I hadn't sent the stuff, it would have been all right, later,
I suppose. But I did send it, and I thought it was O.K., and if it was
as rotten as you said, why, how could I ever tell, again? Anyway, I'm
tired."

They protested, but the City Editor shook his head.

"Let her alone," he said shortly. "It's straight enough. I've seen it
happen before. She's gone too far without a check: I don't believe
women can stand it. Let her alone."

And when the most