ble to
defeat, and she wished miserably that she would fall ill of some mortal
disease, and never have to face the world again with failure written on
her forehead. "Oh, why," she wailed in anguish of spirit, as has many an
older and wiser person when confronted with this same unanswerable
question, "why was I given this glimpse of Paradise only to have the
gate slammed in my face?" That spectre of the winter before, the belief
that success would never be hers, gripped her again with its icy hand.
And was it any wonder? Twice now the means to enter college had been
within her reach, and twice it had been swept away in a single day. But
while Migwan was thus learning by hard experience that there is many a
slip twixt the cup and the lip, she was also to learn from that same
schoolmistress the truth of the old saying, "Three times and out." In
the meantime, however, the skies were as gray as the wings of the
Thunderbird, and life was like a jangling discord struck on a piano long
out of tune.

But even if we _would_ rather be dead than alive, as long as we _are_
alive there remain certain duties which have to be performed regardless
of the state of our emotional barometers, and Migwan discovered with a
start one day that there were at least a dozen letters in her top bureau
drawer waiting to be answered. "It's a shame," she said to herself, as
she looked them over. "I haven't written to the Bartletts since last
November." The Bartletts were the parents of the little boy who was
traced by the aid of her timely snapshot. She opened Mrs. Bartlett's
letter and glanced over it to put herself in the mood for answering it.
She laughed sardonically as she read. Mrs. Bartlett, confident that
Migwan was going to use the reward money to go to college, discussed the
merits of different courses, and advised Migwan, above all things, with
her talent for writing, to put the emphasis on literature and history.
Migwan took a certain grim delight in telling Mrs. Bartlett what had
happened to her ambition to go to college. She had a Homeric sense of
humor that could see the point when the gods were playing pranks on
helpless mortals. She told the story simply and frankly, without any
"literary style," such as was usually present in her letters to a high
degree; neither did she bewail her lot and seek sympathy, for Migwan was
no craven.

Then, having told Mrs. Bartlett that she had made up her mind to give up
thoughts of college for severa