our two hands and wishing they were twenty,
yourself can reach the wide world over with your pen." Miss Ellis
didn't seem especially impressed with his figure, but he nodded
gravely and went on. "'Tis a true word. You can span the aching world
with a clean and healing pen." (Isn't that delicious, Sally?) I tried
to explain that I was just starting, that I was afraid I hadn't
anything of especial importance to say, and then he said, very
sternly--and he has the eyes of a zealot and a fighter's jaw--"Let
you be stepping over to the tenements with me and I'll show you tales
you'll dip your pen in tears and blood to tell!"

He's going to be enormously interesting to study.--There--I've just
this instant placed the resemblance that's been teasing me! He's like
the St. Michael in my favorite Botticelli, the one of Tobias led by
the archangels, carrying the fish to heal his father, Tobit, you
know,--there's a tiny copy of it in my room at home. Next time you
stop by to see Aunt Lyddy (you're a lamb to do it so often!) run up
and look at it. I loved it better than any other picture in Florence;
you can't get the lovely old tones from the little brown copy, but
everything else is there--Tobias, carrying his fish in the funny
little strap and handle, utter trust on his lifted face, the
wonderful lines of drapery, the swaying lily, the absurd little dog
with his tasseled tail (I wonder if he was Botticelli's dog?) and
at the side, guarding and guiding, with sword and symbol, stern St.
Michael _Captain-General of the Hosts of Heaven_. This Michael
Daragh is really like him, name and all. Isn't it curious?

Write me soon and much, old dear. My best to every one, and I sent
the Teddy-bear a bib from the proudest baby-shop on the avenue.

Devotedly,

JANE.

P.S. You might ring up Aunt Lyddy and ask her to send me that little
Botticelli picture--my bare walls are rather bleak.

CHAPTER III

Jane settled jubilantly into the new life,--a brisk walk after breakfast,
up the gay Avenue or down the gray streets below the Square, then three
honest hours at the elderly typewriter, writing at top speed ... tearing
up all she had written ... writing slowly, polishing a paragraph with
passionate care, salvaging perhaps a page, perhaps a sentence out of the
morning's toil. Then she ho