night cap which smiled at her from the mirror.
"But if they dare reject it, Harry will have to worry, dear boy though
he is."

So Pauline lost no time in finishing and submitting her manuscript,
inclosing a special delivery stamp and a request please to let her know
at once.

On Saturday Pauline received a bulky letter in the morning's mail. It
was her neatly typed manuscript and a short letter declining her
story. The editor thought it charming, showed wonderful imagination,
gave great promise of future success, but there was a lack of
experience evident throughout--a little unreal, he added. He
ventured to suggest that the author would do well to travel around and
see the world from different angles. During the afternoon Harvey
Schieffelin dropped in for a call. He had found her story in the
Cosmopolitan and complimented her then he began to laugh.

"Polly, that's a bully story of yours, but you ought to have gone down
and watched some stokers do work before you described that scene."

"What was wrong in my description?" demanded the young authoress.

"Well, you told of a stoker laying his grimy hand on the fire door and
pulling it open to rake the fire."

"Well, couldn't he do that?"

"Oh, yes," laughed Harvey, "he could, but he wouldn't do it more than
once. Those doors are almost red hot and would bum the flesh off the
stoker's hand, whether it were grimy or not. I'll show you on my yacht
some time. What you need is--?"

"Harvey, don't you dare tell me I need experience," interrupted Pauline
with unexpected heat. Young Schieffelin saw that tears were almost in
her eyes.

"Well," thought Schieffelin, "this vein leads too close to water," and
he hurried to shift the course of the conversation.

But the damage was done. Pauline took her story to the little open
fireplace in her room and destroyed it. At the same time she
destroyed, her resolution to give up the year of adventure. There
could be no question, she needed experience. Her adopted father had
admitted it, the editor had said it, and even an empty-headed young man
like Schieffelin could see it. She was sorry for Harry, but it
couldn't be helped. She picked up a copy of "Treasure Island" and soon
wished fervently that the days of pirates were back again.

Owen gave up his fight against morphine late Friday night. Saturday he
was at peace with the world. Gone were all the nerve clamorings and
with them went his scruples. All day