t she
knew many of them by sight.

It was in some such way she watched the artist folk who gave her
employment. She wondered about them; sometimes behind her mask she
laughed at their childishness.

Jane Judd's history up to this point has no more dramatic interest than
the history of any drab woman of twenty-eight, picked out at random
from the army of workwomen which marches daily to and from the factories
and stores.

She had lived in Warburton, a small New Jersey town, until she was
twenty-two, keeping house for her father, who had a grocery store. He
was her only relation. When he died she sold the store and came to New
York to make a living. She was trained for nothing. She had had a High
School education, which left her with a taste for books and a consuming
ambition to write them. Being a dumb creature at best, she had never
spoken of this dream to a human soul, except her mother. The town paper
had published several of her stories, signed with a pen name, and she
secretly cherished the idea that she had talent.

So when her release came, she did as so many girls do these days, she
put her little all into her pocketbook and came to the big town to
grapple with success. She applied at newspaper offices, at first, with
her village paper clippings as justification. She admitted to such
editors as she saw that she had no nose for news, but she liked to write
stories, and thought maybe she could do special stuff. She was shy and
frightened. Nobody wanted her.

She found a cheap room and gave herself a month in which to write short
stories. With one new one, and two old ones worked over, she tried the
magazines. It was a weary round with rejection at every point, while the
reserves in her bank grew smaller and smaller. During the whole month
she never talked to any one, and she knew a loneliness as bitter as
pain.

Finally, one day an editor of a magazine let her come into his office.
He looked at her keenly.

"Miss Judd," he began, "I've read these stories of yours and I want to
give you a bit of advice. Are you trying to make a living out of this
kind of thing?"

"Yes, sir."

"Can you do anything else to support yourself?"

"I don't know."

"Where have you lived?"

Jane told him.

"You're alone in the world?"

"Yes."

"Unmarried?"

"Yes."

"May I tell you quite frankly how I feel about your case?"

"I wish you would."

"You make the common mistake of thinking that anybody can write. Now,